"Edmond Hamilton - The Star Hunters" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Edmond)

looked up at Mason.

"He's worse,тАЭ said Finetti. тАЬPulse, respiration, everything."

"He hasn't come to?"

"Not for a minute, ever since we picked him up,тАЭ said Finetti. He added, тАЬI wish I could do more for him.
I'm not a medic, just a spacer with six-months first-aid training."
"You're doing fine,тАЭ said Mason. He bent down over the bunk.

"Oliphant,тАЭ he said.

The man in the bunk did not answer. His thin face was gray and immobile, the eyes shut. There was only
a faint rise and fall of the mass of bandages that swathed his whole torso.

He was a small man. But to Mason, he loomed gigantic. For Oliphant, his friend and superior, had done
a thing no man in all the history of Terran Intelligence had done before. He had gone right into the
throne-world of the Orionid Empire, deep in the Pleiades, in search of a secret, and he had come away
again.

He hadn't had to do it. He was high enough in the service to give the job to Mason or anyone else. But
the peace of the galaxy was an uneasy one, with only the weight and power of the Terran Empire keeping
the jealous star-kings from each other's threats. And when the rumor had come from Orion, Oliphant
himself had gone in to learn the truth.

A rumor, a whisper, filtering by devious channels across the void. The whisper had said that Janissar,
King-Sovereign of Orion, was a happy man. That he was reaching toward a power, a weapon, a
something, that would make Orion supreme. If he got it, if he used it to enlarge his empire; the peace of
the galaxy would be torn to shreds. It might be only a baseless rumor. Oliphant had gone in to find out.

It was the SC-1419 that had taken him to a dead, airless globe in the Pleiades, sneaking secretly into
Orion space. In his little flitter, Oliphant had gone away from there, heading for the throne-world of the
king of Orion. They had waited, and finally the flitter had come back. But it had come back on auto-pilot,
with Oliphant inside it mortally wounded and unconscious. And he had remained unconscious ever since,
and whatever he had learned was still locked in his brain.

"Oliphant!тАЭ said Mason again, close to his ear. тАЬIt's Mason. Mason."

The waxen face did not stir. Oliphant was far away in realms of sleep where friends and stars and
empires meant nothing.

"I don't think he can last all the way home, sir,тАЭ said Finetti. And added anxiously, on a questioning note,
тАЬIf we get home."

Mason slowly straightened up. тАЬDo all you can for him. We'll get home. WeтАФ"

The annunciator in the wall said, in Stack's voice, тАЬMason!"

Mason went back to the control-room on the double. The hysterical whirring of the computer was just
ceasing, as he entered.