"Edmond Hamilton - The Monsters of Juntonheim" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Edmond)

But I worked twice as hard as anybody else, unloading our small rocket plane for my first
reconnaissance flight northward. Not even intense physical labor could make me forget the sinister cold
force of the rune key inside my shirt, though.


The menacing current felt even stronger when I stood on deck that night. Overhead, the aurora borealis
pulsated in shifting bars and banners of unearthly radiance, changing the immense frozen ocean from
white to green, violet and crimson. Like a mad musician, the freezing wind strummed the schooner's
halyards and made the masts boom out their deep voices.


But the rune key under my shirt tormented me with its conflicting demands. It ordered me to throw it
back to the icy waters. Helpless, I ripped it out and tugged at the cord, trying to snap it. An even
stronger command made me put it back.


The moment I buttoned my shirt, I cursed myself for being a fool. Why should I want to destroy
something of potential value to science? Inwardly, though, I realized that the demands of the rune key
were stronger than my own will.


It can be explained scientifically, I muttered uneasily. Everything has a scientific explanation, once we
can isolate it.

But how could a small, golden cylinder penetrate my mind and order it about like a servant? What filled
my heart with doubt and dread?


For all my canny skepticism and scientific training, I couldn't answer those insistent questions, nor keep
myself from being tormented by the damned thing...
Chapter II. Mystery Land


It was a brilliant Arctic morning. The sun glittered on the white ice-pack, the placid grey sea and the
battered hull of the Peter Saul. I was ready for my first reconnaissance flight northward. Doctor John
Carrul, chief of the expedition, called down to me from the rail of the schooner.


Don't go too far the first trip, Masters. And return at once if the weather grows threatening.

There won't be any storms for days, I replied confidently. I know Arctic weather.

You'd better leave that rune key with me, Dubman shrilled. I'd hate to lose it if you cracked up.

During the past few days, the golden cylinder hadn't been out of my thoughts. Whatever menacing force
radiated from the key, it was still far beyond my science. I had tested it with electroscopes, but they
registered nothing. Yet it did radiate some disturbing force. It was the same with the mental command
that fought the one which tried to make me throw away the key. Apparently supernatural or not, it had
to have some rational, mundane explanation.