"Edmond Hamilton - Children of the Sun" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Edmond)

fraction got through but that was enough to were nearer. Newton, straining his eyes
make the bridge-room an oven. against the solar glare, could barely see the
An awed silence came upon the thingsтАФtwo whirling little wisps of flame,
Futuremen as they looked at the mighty moving fast through the blinding radiance
star that filled almost all the firmament of the corona.
ahead. They had been this close to the Sun Then the two will-o-wisps of fire had
before but no previous experience could disappeared in the vast glare. The eye
lessen the impact of it. searched for them in vain.
You never saw the Sun until you got тАЬI still think,тАЭ Simon was saying, тАЬthat
this close, Newton thought. Ordinary they're just wisps of flaming hydrogen that
planet-dwellers thought of it as a are flung off the Sun and then fall back
beneficent golden thing in the sky, giving again.тАЭ
them heat and light and life. But here you тАЬBut the Vulcanians told of them
saw the Sun as it really was, a throbbing coming down into Vulcan,тАЭ Otho object-
seething core of cosmic force, utterly ed. тАЬHow could bits of flaming gas do that
indifferent to the bits of ash that were its ?тАЭ
planets and to the motes that lived upon
CURT
those ashes.
NEWTON hardly listened. He
They could, at this distance, clearly see
was already whipping the ship in around
gigantic cyclones of flame raging across
Vulcan in a tight spiral few spacemen
the surface of the mighty orb. Into those
would have risked. Its brake rockets
vortices of fire all Earth could have been
thundering, it scudded low around the
dropped and from around them exploded
surface of the little world.
burning geysers that could have shrivelled
The whole surface was semi- molten
worlds.
rock. The heat of the planetoidтАЩs
Sweat was running down Curt Newton's
stupendous neighbor kept its outer skin
face now and he gasped a little for each
half- melted. Lava sweltered in great pools,
breath. тАЬTemperature, Otho ?тАЭ he asked
infernal lagoons framed by smoking rock
without turning his head.
hills. Fire burst up from the rocks, as
тАЬOnly fifty degrees under the safety
though called forth by the nearby Sun.
limit and the anti- heaters running full
Grag first saw what they were looking
load,тАЭ said the android. тАЬIf we've
forтАФa gaping round pit in the sunward
miscalculated courseтАФтАЭ
side of the planetoid. Presently Captain