"Edmond Hamilton - Calling Captain Future" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Edmond)

boiling heart of the vast invisible whirlpool. Police, ominously armed pirate ships, even small space-
"Hang on to a stanchion," Captain Future told the yachts. These dead ships floated, rubbing slowly
other two in a low voice. against each other's sides. And between and among
them floated all kinds of interplanetary debris that had

C LINGING for support, they felt their craft batted been swept into the maelstrom тАУ meteors large and
about by titanic, unseen tides. Everything was top- small, fragments of splintered asteroids, bits of metal
sy-turvy. wreckage, and stiff, space-suited bodies of dead men
Then, after terrifying minutes of chaotic movement, who perhaps had floated in the void for years before
the space-boat seemed to enter smooth. undisturbed drifting into this last resting place.
space. It floated now as placidly as though on a

U
millpond. NUTTERABLY awe-inspiring was the sight, here
"Why, we're out of the currents now." Kansu Kane in the thin, pale sunlight of outer space. Here was
faltered, peering out with myopic eyes. the end of many a brave-hearted voyage. Here many a
"We've escaped from the Sargasso?" Joan cried joy- good ship that had once throbbed from world to world
fully to Captain Future. had come to peace and quiet at last. Here was a Valhal-
Curt shook his bead. "I'm sorry to disillusion you. la of space ships and space-men. whose eternal tran-
We've reached the dead-center of the whirlpool of cur- quility and silence would not be disturbed until the Sys-
rents, an area of undisturbed space at the heart of this tem ended.
space-maelstrom." "Do you think there are any living people in those
He opened the throttles, starting up the rockets. ships, Captain Future?" asked Joan Randall in a low
"We'll try to buck our way back out, but I'm pretty voice.
sure it's useless." "I'm afraid there's no chance of that. The air-supply
Rockets flaming, the little boat shot back in the di- of any ship that drifted in here would soon be exhaust-
rection from which it had come. In a half-minute it ed, and then any living people aboard would die."
plunged again into the titanic, invisible ether-currents. "Then we will perish when our boat's air-tanks are
The currents grasped the craft once more and flung it empty?' the girl cried. "Only two days from now?"
like a toy back into the dead-center. "We're going to try to get out of here before then"'
"Thought so," Curt muttered. "We're in here to stay, Curt said grimly. "There's just a chance that if we fitted
unless we can devise enough new power to carry us up this space-boat with additional cyclotrons taken
out." from some of these wrecks, it would give us enough
"Where do you expect to find any additional source power to fight out through the currents. We'll have to
of power in this empty hole in space?" Kansu asked go through the wrecks first and see if we can find
hopelessly. enough cyclotrons in good condition," he added.
"There," said Captain Future quietly, pointing Joan shuddered. "Search through those deathly,
ahead. silent ships?"
They stared. Far ahead, avast jumbled metal mass "You can wait in the space-boat with Kansu Kane, if
floated motionless in space. The mass was lenticular in you want," Curt told her. "It'll be strenuous work
shape, and hung at the very center of the dead-area here searching."
in the maelstrom. "No, no, I want to go with you!" the girl cried.
As their craft hummed closer, they saw that this far- "Well. I don't," Kansu Kane said sourly. "Maybe I
flung, jumbled mass was a great aggregation of space can, reconstruct my lost Andromedan notes from mem-
ships and debris of all descriptions. All this flotsam was ory, while you two are scrambling around in there."
held together by its own slight mutual gravitation. Curt and Joan donned the black suits and glassite
"What is it?" Joan Randall whispered awedly. helmets. He tested the suit-phone to make sure it was
"It is the graveyard of space ships," Curt said. "The working, and then they passed out through the tiny air-
last resting-place of every ship that has been sucked lock of the space- boat.
into the Sargasso Sea of Space since interplanetary They stepped out into sheer space and floated to-