"David A. Kyle - Lensman 10 - Z- Lensman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kyle David A)

importance to
rate such a vehicle.
Dick Armstrong, he told himself, was the most unlikely Lensman to have been
sent on this
most bewildering mission. He had asked for. an explanation on Tellus and again
at
Dingwall, but he had received none. As for his retirement, he was assured that
"a few
weeks temporaryduty" would make no difference.
Armstrong was a slim and handsome man, with strands of white in his thick
black hair,
which he combed over his plate, a true Tellurian with the blood of all the
human races of
Earth flowing in his aging veins. He had risen, in his two working lifetimes,
to high
administrative responsibility within the elite GP officer corps. He had had
opportunities to
be sent off Tellus; one offer had been . excellent, but he had refused, and
his decision had
been exactly right, for he had then been given the disciplined life of a
special GP
assignment at Prime Base. He had become "racial psychology analyst," an
important but
sedentary task far removed from the popular idea of an adventurous Lensman,
and he
thoroughly enjoyed this regimented life. He had planned to end the second of
his working
lifetimes shortly by taking his third full Life-Restoration and retiring into
some research
center.
How could it be that he was here, on the border of nowhere, between two
galaxies, on a
deserted alien space station, standing amid the corpses of pirates, and faced
with a weird
riddle?
At the heart of the puzzle was the disappearance of Bovreck and Ymkzex. They
had
presumably both been on the station less than two hours ago, at the time of
the attack. Now
there was no physical trace of them, of that Armstrong was certain, having
searched all
monitors and records. The only clue was the recording, on nonelectronic,
telepathic
broadwave, filed on the message board. He had played it three times to be
certain he had
registered it properly.
"This is Bovreck. If I die and Ymkzex lives, neutralize Ymkzex as
untrustworthy. Do not
destroy this order, Ymkzex, if you hear it; instead, destroy yourself. If,
however, Ymkzex