"Leinster, Murray - First Contact" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)
TOMMY DORT WENT into the captainТs room with his last pair of stereophotos and said:
УIТm through, sir. These are the last two pictures I can take.Ф
He handed over the photographs and looked with professional interest at the visiplates which showed all space outside the ship. Subdued, deep-red lighting indicated the controls and such instruments as the quartermaster on duty needed for navigation of the spaceship Lianvabon. There was a deeply cushioned control chair. There was the little gadget of oddly angled mirrorsЧremote descendant of the back-view mirrors of twentieth-century motoristsЧwhich allowed a view of all the visiplates without turning the head. And there were the huge plates which were so much more satisfactory for a direct view of space.
The Lianvabon was a long way from home. The plates, which showed every star of visual magnitude and could be stepped up to any desired magnification, portrayed stars of every imaginable degree of brilliance, in the startlingly different colors they show outside of atmosphere. But every one was unfamiliar. Only two constellations could be recognized as seen from Earth, and they were shrunken and distorted. The Milky Way seemed vaguely out of place. But even such oddities were minor compared to a sight in the forward plates.
There was a vast, vast mistiness ahead. A luminous mist. It seemed motionless. It took a long time for any appreciable nearing to appear in the vision plates, though the spaceshipТs velocity indicator showed an incredible speed. The mist was the Crab Nebula, six light-years long, three and a half light-years thick, with outward-reaching members that in the telescopes of Earth gave it some resemblance to the creature for which it was named. It was a cloud of gas, infinitely tenuous, reaching half again as far as from Sol to its nearest neighbor-sun. Deep within it burned two stars; a double star; one component the familiar yellow of the sun of Earth, the other an unholy white.
Tommy Dort said meditatively:
УWeТre heading into a deep, sir?Ф
The skipper studied the last two plates of TommyТs taking, and put them aside. He went back to his uneasy contemplation of the vision plates ahead. The Lianvabon was decelerating at full force. She was a bare half light-year from the nebula. TommyТs work was guiding the shipТs course, now, but the work was done. During all the stay of the exploring ship in the nebula, Tommy Dort would loaf. But heТd more than paid his way so far.
He had just completed a quite unique firstЧa complete photographic record of the movement of a nebula during a period of four thousand years, taken by one individual with the same apparatus and with cdntrol exposures to detect and record any systematic errors. It was an achievement in itself worth the journey from Earth. But in addition, he had also recorded four thousand years of the history of a double star, and four thousand years of the history of a star in the act of degenerating into a white dwarf.
It was not that Tommy Dort was four thousand years old. He was, actually, in his twenties. But the Crab Nebula is four thousand light-years from Earth, and the last two pictures had been taken by light which would not reach Earth until the sixth millennium A.D. On the way hereЧat speeds incredible multiples of the speed of lightЧTommy Dort had recorded each aspect of the nebula by the light which had left it from forty centuries since to a bare six months ago.
The Lianvabon bored on through space. Slowly, slowly, slowly, the incredible luminosity crept across the vision plates. It blotted out half the universe from view. Before was glowing mist, and behind was a star-studded emptiness. The mist shut off three-fourths of all the stars. Some few of the brightest shone dimly through it near its edge, but only a few. Then there was only an irregularly shaped patch of darkness astern against which stars shone unwinking. The Lianvabon dived into the nebula, and it seemed as if it bored into a tunnel of darkness with walls of shining fog.
Which was exactly what the spaceship was doing. The most distant photographs of all had disclosed structural features in the nebula. It was not amorphous. It had form. As the Lianvabon drew nearer, indications of structure grew more distinct, and Tommy Dort had argued for a curved approach for photographic reasons. So the spaceship had come up to the nebula on a vast logarithmic curve, and Tommy had been able to take successive photographs from slightly different angles and get stereopairs which showed the nebula in three dimensions; which disclosed billowings and hollows and an actually complicated shape. In places, the nebula displayed convolutions like those of a human brain. It was into one of those hollows that the spaceship now plunged. They had been called УdeepsФ by analogy with crevasses in the ocean floor. And they promised to be useful.
The skipper relaxed. One of a skipperТs functions, nowadays, is to think of things to worry about, and then to worry about them. The skipper of the Lianvabon was conscientious. Only after a certain instrument remained definitely nonregistering did he ease himself back in his seat.
УIt was just hardly possible,Ф he said heavily, Уthat those deeps might be nonluminous gas. But theyТre empty. So weТll be able to use overdrive as long as weТre in them.Ф
It was a light-year-and-a-half from the edge of the nebula to the neighborhood of the double star which was its heart. That was the problem. A nebula is a gas. It is so thin that a cometТs tail is solid by comparison, but a ship traveling on overdriveЧabove the speed of light does not want to hit even a merely hard vacuum. It needs pure emptiness, such as exists between the stars. But the Lianvabon could not do much in this expanse of mist if it was limited to speeds a merely hard vacuum would permit.
The luminosity seemed to close in behind the spaceship, which slowed and slowed and slowed. The overdrive went off with the sudden pinging sensation which goes all over a person when the overdrive field is released.
Then, almost instantly, bells burst into clanging, strident uproar all through the ship. Tommy was almost deafened by the alarm bell which rang in the captainТs room before the quarter master shut it off with a flip of his hand. But other bells could be heard ringing throughout the rest of the ship, to be cut off as automatic doors closed one by one.
Tommy Dort stared at the skipper. The skipperТs hands clenched. He was up and staring over the quartermasterТs shoulder. One indicator was apparently having convulsions. Others strained to record their findings. A spot on the diffusedly bright mistiness of a bowquartering visiplate grew brighter as the automatic scanner focused on it. That was the direction of the object which had sounded collision-alarm. But the object locator itselfЧaccording to its reading, there was one solid object some eighty thousand miles awayЧan object of no great size. But there was another object whose distance varied from extreme range to zero, and whose size shared its impossible advance and retreat.
УStep up the scanner,Ф snapped the skipper.
The extra-bright spot on the scanner rolled outward, obliterating the undifferentiated image behind it. Magnification increased. But nothing appeared. Absolutely nothing. Yet the radio locator insisted that something. monstrous and invisible made lunatic dashes toward the Lianvabon, at speeds which inevitably implied collision, and then fled coyly away at the same rate.
The visiplate went up to maximum magnification. Still nothing. The skipper ground his teeth. Tommy Dort said meditatively:
УDТyou know, sir, I saw something like this on a liner of the EarthЧMars run once, when we were being located by another ship. Their locator beam was the same frequency as ours, and every time it hit, it registered like something monstrous, and solid.Ф
He pressed the button in his sleeve communicator and snapped:
УAction stations! Man all weapons! Condition of extreme alert in all departments immediately!Ф
His hands closed and unclosed. He stared again at the visiplate, which showed nothing but a formless brightness.
УNot men?Ф Tommy Dort straightened sharply. УYou meanЧФ
УHow many solar systems in our galaxy?Ф demanded the skipper bitterly. УHow many planets fit for life? And how many kinds of life could there be? If this ship isnТt from EarthЧand it isnТtЧit has a crew that isnТt human. And things that arenТt human but are up to the level of deep-space travel in their civilization could mean anything!Ф
The skipperТs hands were actually shaking. He would not have talked so freely before a member of his own crew, but Tommy Dort was of the observation staff. And even a skipper whose duties include worrying may sometimes need desperately to unload his worries. Sometimes, too, it helps to think aloud.
УSomething like this has been talked about and speculated about for years,Ф he said soffly. УMathematically, itТs been an odds-on bet that somewhere in our galaxy thereТd be another race with, a civilization equal to or further advanced than ours. Nobody could ever guess where -or when weТd meet them. But it looks like weТve done it now!Ф
TommyТs eyes were very bright.
УDТyou suppose theyТll be friendly, sir?Ф
The skipper glanced at the distance indicator. The phantom object still made its insane, nonexistent swoops toward and away from the Lianvabon. The secondary indication of an object at eighty thousand miles stirred ever so slightly.
УItТs moving,Ф he said curtly. УHeading for us. Just what weТd do if a strange spaceship appeared in our hunting grounds! Friendly? Maybe! WeТre going to try to contact them. We have to. But I suspect this is the end of this expedition. Thank God for the blasters!Ф
The blasters are those beams of ravening destruction which take care of recalcitrant meteorites in a spaceshipТs course when the deflectors canТt handle them. They are not designed as weapons, but they can serve as pretty good ones. They can go into action at five thousand miles, and draw on the entire power output of a whole ship. With automatic aim and a traverse of five degrees, a ship like the Lianvabon can come very close to blasting a hole through a small-sized asteroid which gets in its way. But not on overdrive, of course.
Tommy Dort had approached the bow-quartering visiplate. Now he jerked his head around.
УBlasters, sir? What for?Ф
The skipper grimaced at the empty visiplate.
УBecause we donТt know what theyТre like and canТt take a chance! I know!Ф he added bitterly. УWeТre going to make contacts and try to find out all we can about themЧespecially where they come from. I suppose weТll try to make friendsЧbut we havenТt much chance. We canТt trust them a fraction of an inch. WeТ darenТt! TheyТve locators. Maybe theyТve tracers better than any we have. Maybe they could trace us all the way home without our knowing it! We canТt risk a nonhuman race knowing where Earth is unless weТre sure of them! And how can we be sure? They could come to trade, of courseЧor they could swoop down on overdrive with a battle fleet,that could wipe us out before we knew what happened. We wouldnТt know which to expect, or when!Ф
TommyТs face was startled.
УItТs all been thrashed out over and over, in theory,Ф said the skipper. УNobodyТs ever been able to find a sound answer, even on paper. But you know, in all their theorizing, no one considered the crazy, rank impossibility of a deep-space contact, with neither side knowing the otherТs home world! But weТve got to find an answer in fact! What are we going to do about them? Maybe these creatures will be aesthetic marvels, nice and friendly and politeЧand, underneath, with the sneaking brutal ferocity of a mugger. Or maybe theyТll be crude and gruff as a farmerЧand just as decent underneath. Maybe theyТre something in between. But am I going to risk the possible future of the human race on a guess that itТs safe to trust them? God knows it would be worthwhile to make friends with a new civilization! It would be bound to stimulate our own, and maybe weТd gain enormously. But I canТt take chances. The one thing I wonТt risk is having them know how to find Earth! Either I know they canТt follow me, or 1 donТt go home! And theyТll probably feel the same way!Ф
He pressed the sleeve-communicator button again.
УNavigation officers, attention! Every star map on this ship is to be prepared for instant destruction. This includes photographs and diagrams from which our course or starting point could be deduced. I want all astronomical data gathered and arranged to be destroyed in a split second, on order. Make it fast and report when ready!Ф
He released the button. He looked suddenly old. The first contact of humanity with an alien race was a situation which had been foreseen in many fashions, but never one quite so hopeless of solution as this. A solitary Earth-ship and a solitary alien, meeting in a nebula which must be remote from the home planet of each. They might wish peace, but the line of conduct which best prepared a treacherous attack was just the seeming of friendliness. Failure to be suspicious might doom the human raceЧand a peaceful exchange of the fruits of civilization would be the greatest benefit imaginable. Any mistake would be irreparable, but a failure to be on guard would be fatal.
The captainТs room was very, very quiet. The bowquartering visiplate was filled with the image of a very small section of the nebula. A very small section indeed. It was all diffused, featureless, luminous mist. But suddenly Tommy Dort pointed.
УThere, sir!"
There was a small shape in the mist. It was far away. It was a black shape, not polished to mirror-reflection like the hull of the Lianvabon. It was bulbousЧroughly pear-shaped. There was much thin luminosity between, and no details could be observed, but it was surely no natural object. Then Tommy looked at the distance indicator and said quietly:
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