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

Absorbed in keeping the plane on its course and making a map of the ice below, my sense of time was
temporarily paralyzed. The rocket motor roared tirelessly, and the ice unrolled endlessly below. When
my ship lurched sharply, I abruptly realized that the wind was suddenly rising. I looked around, startled.
A huge dark wall was rising across the southern horizon.


Damn it, I'll never call myself a weather prophet again, I swore. There just couldn't be any storm. But
there it is!

I banked around sharply and flew southward, fighting to rise above the fury. But the higher I climbed, the
higher the black, boiling wall of the storm seemed to rise. I knew I was caught.


Two minutes to live, I gritted. It'll be a fast death

Driving before it a cloud of stinging snow, the storm smacked my plane like a giant hand. Stunned by the
impact, deafened, I swung the nose around and let the wind sweep the plane northward. There was no
hope of fighting. I could only run before the gale until its fury subsided. The whole sky was dark and
raging around me, filled with screaming wind and snow. Gripping the firing wheel, I battled to keep the
reeling plane in the air.


But why did the rune key inside my shirt seem to throb with frantic warning? Why did that alien voice in
my mind seem eager and exultant? Why did I feel there was something purposeful about this gale's
direction? The storm had come up suddenly out of a clear sky as soon as my plane was well in the air.
Now it was hurling me straight in one direction.


The imminent peril of death grew less unnerving than the mounting suspicion that there was something
deliberate about the storm. The warning force throbbing from the rune key, and the wildly exultant alien
voice in my brain, combined to demoralize me.


After nearly six hours of ceaseless storm-driven flight, I received the greatest shock. Peering ahead
through the frosted cabin windows, I realized suddenly that there was a great area dead ahead which I
could not see!


It can't be real! I gasped. A colossal blind spot

My vision seemed to slide around that vast area. I could see the ice-pack beyond it, scores of miles
away. I could see the ice on either side of it. But the area itself just didn't register.


Some trick of refraction, perhaps due to the terrestrial magnetic currents that are strong here, I
muttered. Maybe it's connected with the mystery of the aurora.

My scientific reasoning didn't quiet my nerves. For the storm that bore me on was carrying me straight
toward that huge blind spot. When I was almost to the edge of the enigmatic area my vision seemed to