"Leinster, Murray - The Fifth-Dimension Tube UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

УRun away? Hardly!Ф said Tommy. УWeТre going up. IТm going to fight the fleet with bullets. They donТt have missileweapons here, and Aten will know the range of their electriccharge outfits.Ф
УIТm coming too,Ф said Evelyn desperately.
Tommy hesitated, then agreed.
УIf we fail theyТll gas the city anyway. One way or the other. . .
There was a sudden rumble as Evelyn took her place. The plane shot forward with a swift smooth acceleration. There was no sound of any motor. There was no movement of the glittering thing at the forepart of the plane. But the ship reached the end of the slide and lifted, and then was in midair, fifty feet above the vehicular way, a hundred feet above the ground.

TOMMY spoke urgently. Aten nodded. The ship had started to climb. He leveled it out and darted straight forward. He swung madly to dodge a soaring tower. He swept upward a little to avoid a flying bridge. The ship was traveling with an enormous speed, and the golden walls of the city flashed past below them and they sped away across feathery jungle.
УIf we climbed at once,Ф observed Tommy shortly, УtheyТd
think we meant to fight. They might start their gassing. As it is, we look like weТre running away.Ф
Evelyn said nothing. For five miles theТ plane fled as if in panic. Evelyn clung to the filigree side of the cockpit. The city dwindled behind them. Then Aten climbed steeply. Tommy was looking keenly at the glittering thing which propelled the ship. It seemed like a crystal gridwork, like angular lace contrived of glass. But a cold blue flame burned in it and Tommy was obscurely reminded of a neon tube, though the color was wholly unlike. A blast of air poured back through the grid. Somehow, by some development of electro-statics, the Уstatic jetФ which is merely a toy in Earth laboratories had become usable as a means of propelling aircraft.
Back they swept toward the Golden City, five thousand feet or more aloft. The ground was partly obscured by the hazy, humid atmosphere, but glinting sun-reflections from the city guided them. Soaring things took shape before them and grew swiftly nearer. Tommy spoke again, busily loading the automatic rifle with explosive shells.
Aten swung to follow a vast dark shape in its circular soaring, a hundred feet above it and a hundred yards behind. Wind whistled, rising to a shriek. Tommy fired painstakingly.

THE other plane zoomed suddenly as a flash of blue flame spouted before it. It dived, then, fluttering and swooping, began to drift helplessly toward the spires of the city below it.
УGood!Ф snapped Tommy. УAnother one, Aten.Ф
Aten made no reply. He flung his ship sidewise and dived steeply before a monstrous freight carrier. Tommy fired deliberately as they swept past. The propelling grid flashed blue flame in a vast, crashing flame. It, too, began to flutter down.
Tommy did not miss until the fifth time, and Aten turned with a grimace of disappointment. TommyТs second shot burst in a freight compartment and a man screamed. His voice carried horribly in the silence of these heights. But Tommy shot again, and again, and there was a satisfying blue flash as a fifth big ship went fluttering helplessly down.
Aten began to circle for height. Tommy refilled the magazine.
УIТm bringing Сem down,Ф he explained unnecessarily to Evelyn, Уby smashing their propellers. They have to land, and when they land theyТre hostagesЧI hope!Ф
Confusion became apparent among the hostile planes. The one Yugna ship was identified as the source of disaster. Tommy worked his rifle with a cold fury. He aimed at no man, but the propelling grids were large. For a one-man ship they were five feet in diameter, and for the big freight ships they were circles fifteen feet across. They were perfect targets, and Aten seemed to grasp the necessary tactics almost instantly. Dead ahead or from straight astern, Tommy would not miss a shot. The fleet of Rahn went fluttering downward. Fifteen of the biggest were down, and six of the two-man planes. A sixteenth and seventeenth flashed at their bows and drifted helplessly. .

THEN the one-man ships attacked. Six of them at once. Aten grinned and dived for all of them. One by one, Tommy smashed their crystal grids and watched them sinking unsteadily toward the towers of the city. As his own ship drove over them, little golden flashes licked out. Electric-charge weapons. One flash struck the wingtip of their plane and flame burst out, but Aten flung the ship into a mad whirl in which the blaze was blown out.
Another freight ship helplessЧand another. Then the air fleet of Rahn turned and fled. The ornithopters winged away in heavy, creaking terror. The other dived for speed and flattened out hardly above the tree-fern jungle. They streaked away in ignominious panic. Aten darted and circled above them and, as Tommy failed to fire, turned and went racing back toward the city.
УAfter the first ones went down,Ф observed Tommy, Уthey knew that if they gassed the city weТd shoot them down into their own gas cloud. So they ran away. I hope this gives us a pull.Ф
The cityТs towers loomed before them. The lacy bridges swarmed with human figures. Somewhere a fight was in progress about a grounded plane from Rahn. Others seemed to have surrendered sullenly on alighting. For the first time Tommy saw the city as a thronging mass of humanity, and for
the first time he realized how terrible must be the strain upon the city if with so large a population so few could be free for leisure in normal times. -
The little plane settled down and landed lightly. There were a dozen men on the landing platform now, and they were herding disarmed men from Rahn away from a big ship Tommy had brought down. Tommy looked curiously at the prisoners. They seemed freer than the inhabitants of Yugna. Their faces showed no such signs of strain. But they did not seem well-fed, nor did they appear as capable or as resolute.
УCuyal!Ф said Aten in an explanatory tone, seeing TommyТs expression. He put his shoulder to the big ship, to wheel it back into its shed.
УYou son of a gun,Ф grunted Tommy, УitТs all in the dayТs work to you, fighting an invading fleet!Ф
A messenger came panting through the doorway. Tommy grinned.
УThe Council wants us, Evelyn. Now maybe theyТll listen.Ф

THE atmosphere of the resumed Council meeting was, as a
matter of fact, considerably changed. The white-bearded
Keeper of Foodstuffs thanked them with dignity. He invited
Tommy to offer advice, since his services had proved so useful.
УAdvice?Ф said Tommy, in the halting, fumbling phrases he had slaved to acquire. УI would put the prisoners from Rahn to work at the machines, releasing citizens.Ф There was a buzz of approval, and he added drily in English: УIТm playing politics, Evelyn.Ф Again in the speech of Yugna he added: УAnd I would have the fleet of Yugna soar above Rahn, not to demand tribute as that city did, but to disable all its aircraft, so that such piracy as to-day may not be tried again!Ф There was a second buzz of approval. УAnd third,Ф said Tommy earnestly, УI would communicate with Earth, rather than assassinate it. I would acquire the science of Earth for the benefit of this world, rather than use the science of this world to annihilate that! IЧФ
For the second time the council meeting was interrupted. An armed messenger came pounding into the room. He reported swiftly. Tommy grasped EvelynТs wrist in what was almost a painful grip.
УNoises in the Tube!Ф he told her sharply. УEarth-folk doing something in the Tube Jacaro came through. Your father . .
There was an alert silence in the Council hall. The whitebearded old man had listened to the messenger. Now he asked a grim question of Tommy.
УThey may be my friends, or your enemies,Ф said Tommy briefly. УMass thermit-throwers and let me find out!Ф

IT was the only possible thing to do. Tommy and Evelyn went with the Council, in a body, in a huge wheeled vehicle that raced across the city. Lingering groups still searched the sky above them, now blessedly empty again. But the CouncilТs vehicle dived down and down to ground level, where the rumble of machines was loud indeed, and then turned into a tunnel which went down still farther. There was feverish activity ahead, where it stopped, and a golden thermit-thrower came into sight upon a dull-colored truck.
Questions. Feverish replies. The white-bearded man touched Tommy on the shoulder, regarding him with a peculiarly noncommittal gaze, and pointed to a doorway that someone was just opening. The door swung wide. There was a confusion of prismatically-colored mist within it, and Tommy noticed that tanks upon tanks were massed outside the metal wall of that compartment, and seemingly had been pouring something into the room.
The mist drew back from the door. Saffron-red lighting panels appeared dimly, then grew distinct. There were small, collapsed bundles of fur upon the floor of the storeroom being exposed to view. They were, probably, the equivalent of rats. And then the last remnant of mist vanished with a curiously wraithlike abruptness, and the end of JacaroТs Tube came into view.
Tommy advanced, Evelyn clinging to his sleeve. There were clanking noises audible in this room even above the dull rumble of the cityТs machines. The noises came from the TubeТs mouth. It was four feet and more across, and it projected at a crazy angle out of a previously solid wall.
УHello!Ф shouted Tommy. УDown the Tube!Ф


THE clattering noise stopped, then continued at a faster rate.