"Edmond Hamilton - Captain Future 13 - The Face of the Deep" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Edmond)

THE FACE OF THE DEEP
THE FACE OF THE DEEP
By EDMOND HAMILTON
Carried Far Outside the Solar System, and wrecked on a Volcanic Planetoid in Company with a
Shipload of Condemned Criminals, Captain Future Faces the Surpreme Test of His Courage!
1
THE FACE OF THE DEEP
CHAPTER I
Prison Ship
HE had been a proud ship once, a splendid,
shining liner rocketing between the planets
with laughter and music and happiness aboard. But
that had been years ago. Tonight she lay grim and
black in her dock at New York spaceport, somberly
waiting to carry damned souls to their place of
punishment.
S
Her name was the Vulcan and she was the
famous prison-ship of the Planet Patrol. Once a
year, she went out through the worlds upon a
fateful voyage. At each world, criminals sentenced
to life imprisonment came aboard her. The end of
the voyage was at the grim, gray Interplanetary
Prison on Cerberus, moon of Pluto.
Men in purple-striped convict dress were
shuffling now under the krypton lights' blue glare
toward the looming black hull. They were a motley
crew of vicious, hardened criminals- mostly hard-
faced Earthmen, but a few green-skinned Venusians
and red Martians.
They were guarded by vigilant, armed officers in
the black uniform of the Planet Patrol.
A girl who also wore that black uniform stood
under the lights near the ship, shaking her dark
head at her tall, redhaired male companion.
"I have to go, Curt," she was protesting. "The
Patrol is short-handed because of that trouble on
Mercury. And these criminals must be well-
guarded, for they're the most dangerous lot in the
System."
"But to send a girl as a guard-officer on that hell-
ship!" exclaimed the tall, redhaired young man
angrily. "Your Commander must be crazy."
Joan Randall, slim and dark and youthful in her
black jacket and slacks, was distractingly pretty in
her resentful denial.
"You talk as though I were a simpering
debutante who had never been off Earth before,"
she said indignantly. "Haven't I been working for
the Patrol for four years?"