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

voices. Then as he glimpsed a sudden flash of
movement beside him, he yelled a warning.
"Look out -- your pistol!" he cried to the
Mercurian lieutenant.
A Venusian convict in one of the cells had
hurled out through his barred door a little noose
improvised from his belt. The loop had settled
around the hilt of the Mercurian lieutenant's belt-
weapon. The Venusian tugged hard, snatching the
atom-pistol toward himself as Future shouted.
Captain Future spun and charged that cell-door
with superhuman speed. The Venusian had got the
pistol into his hands. His blazing black eyes looked
over its sights at Curt, with deadly purpose.
Curt ducked and flung up his hand in an oddly
slicing gesture at the convict's arm. The crash of
6
THE FACE OF THE DEEP
blasting white fire from the atom-pistol grazed over
his head and fused a patch in the metal ceiling.
Next moment, Curt had got hold of the
Venusian's arm through the bars and had wrenched
hard. The gun clattered to the floor. He picked it up
and grimly returned it to the scared young
Mercurian lieutenant.
"Next time, keep your holster buttoned when
you walk through this for corridor," Curt advised
him meaningly.
"Next time I'll get you, Future!" hissed the
Venusian convict, nursing his wrenched arm and
glaring his hatred through the bars.
"It's that devil, Moremos," volunteered the
shaken young Patrol officer. "Only he would have
thought of a trick like that."
"Oh, Curt -- I wish you hadn't come," breathed
Joan. Her brown eyes were shadowed by dread.
"They all hate you so terribly."
Raging threats were following Curt Newton and
the others as they went on along the prison-deck.
But the bellowing order of a huge Martian in one of
the cells put a period to the tumult.
"Silence, you space-scum!" roared the big
scarred-face red convict. "You hear? Kim Ivan
orders it."
The uproar quieted almost magically. It was as
though all the convicts recognized authority in the
notorious Martian pirate's command.
But one voice remained unquieted. The uncanny
shriek of John Rollinger still reached their ears as
they left the prison-deck.