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

as though from
a continuous series of electric shocks. He fell forward on the console. Then
the
second-in-command and the helmsman collapsed, falling upon the back of the
dead
captain.
Only Val-d'or, with a queer, incomprehensible expression around his wide,
brilliant eyes,
remained alive, his body fixed in a grotesque pose against the room's main
stanchion.
Brolenteen, although en route and still light-years away, knew instantaneously
what had
happened. He was not surprised, for he long ago had visualized the event. When
he
reached the station within hours after the deadly attack, he found exactly
what the newly
arrived Lensman Armstrong had found earlier.
Tellurian Lensman Dick Armstrong was thoroughly puzzled. The station was
without life.
There was no Bovreck, no Ymkzex, nor any trace of them. He stood in the
passageway of
windowless, unlighted Laboratory Five, staring down at the three human bodies
disclosed
by his headlamp, talking to himself.
"Three bodies in the pilothouse, two more inside the open air lock. Eight
corpses with no
signs of wounds, but certainly death by some kind of violence. . ."
He set the time of death at from ninety to a hundred minutes before he' had
sped to the
scene under full emergency power. He had been in a globular cluster, picking
up supplies
at the outpost GP base, when the urgent Lensed message had arrived from
Research
Laboratory Five.
The message had been directed to "Ang, Dingwall outpost" and stated: "Boskone
imminent. Category 23x 4y blackpatch. B plus Y." For some inexplicable reason,
Armstrong was the sole recipient of the Lensed signal. When he attempted to
acknowledge it, however; he made no contact. Instead, a third mind impressed
itself upon
his own with an explanation: `Armstrong, you are to act in the absence of Ang.
Laboratory
Five is shortly to suffer a pirate attack, categorized as a minor menace but
possibly a
forerunner of a different disaster, as judged by both Bovreck and Ymkzex.
Leave Dingwall
at once, go to their aid. Keep a tight thought-screen, no Lens.
Armstrong, his ship already fueled and packed with the priority freight, left
Dingwall outpost
in less than eight GP minutes. He had traveled thousands of lightyears already
without