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

had got into one of their interminable
arguments. Curt left them with Joan, and went
down with Captain Theron and Ezra and the Brain
G
to conduct his inspection.
The Vulcan, as a former small liner, was built
along standard lines. It had three main decks, one
above the other. Top-deck held the big bridge-
room, the operational and chart rooms, and officer
quarters. The little cabins occupied by the Patrol
officers and by the Futuremen were in the rear part
of this deck.
The mid-deck, which had formerly contained
passenger cabins, had been redesigned into a cell-
deck. Entrance to it was only through two massive
chromaloy doors, one fore and one aft. Both were
locked and had guards posted outside them at all
hours.
The cyc-deck, as the lower deck of a liner was
usually called, was a noisy, crowded place. It's fore
part was crowded with fuel tanks and supply-
rooms, and the whole stern of this lowest deck was
the big cyc-room in which the huge atomic
generators droned away to feed streams of atomic
power to the great rocket-tubes.
Captain Future and Simon and the captain
followed the old marshal down the zigzag
companionway to the fore door of the mid-deck. It
was locked, and two armed Patrol officers stood
guard outside it.
"Open her up an' bring the X-Ray 'scanner',"
Ezra Gurney drawled to the guards. "We're goin' to
run a little inspection."
The "scanner" was brought by one guard while
the other unlocked the massive door. The
instrument looked like a powerful searchlight,
beside which was mounted an eyepiece that
resembled binocular tubes.
When Curt Newton entered the cell-deck
corridor with the others, a low, muttering growl ran
along the crowded cells. It quickly sudsided, but the
caged criminals glared in silent hate at the tall,
redhaired planeteer who was the greatest enemy of
their kind.
"You can see that these cell-doors can only be
opened by the outside control," Ezra Gurney was
saying to Curt. "Furthermore, this whole deck, like
the other compartments of the ship, can be
exhausted of air by the master-valves up in the
bridge-room. If these fellows started anythin', we