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

Then Denham blew a smoke ring and said meditatively:
УI think IТve got something too, Tommy. Ultra-sonic vibrations. Sound waves at two to three hundred thousand per second. Air wonТt carry them. Liquids will. They use Сem to sterilize milk, killing the germs by sound waves carried through the fluid. I think we can start some ultra-sonic generators out there that will go through the wet soil and kill all vegetation within a given range. We might clear away the jungle for half a mile or so and then use ultra-sonic beams to keep it clear while new food-plants are tried out.Ф
TommyТs eyes glowed.
УYouТve given yourself a job! WeТll turn this planet upside down.Ф
УWeТll have to,Ф said Denham drily. УThis city may believe in you, but there are others, and these folk are a little too clever. ThereТs no reason why some other city shouldnТt attack Earth, if they seriously attack the problem of building a Tube.Ф
Tommy ground his teeth, frowning. Then he started up. There was a new noise down in the city. A sudden flare of intolerable illumination broke out. There was an explosion, many screams, then the yelling tumult of men in deadly battle.

EVERY man on the tower terrace was facing toward the noise, staring. The white-bearded man gave an order, deliberately. Men rushed. But as they swarmed toward an exit, a green beam of light appeared near the uproar. It streaked upward, wavering from side to side and making the golden walls visible in a ghostly fashion. It shivered in a hasty rhythm.
Aten groaned, almost sobbed. There was another flash of that unbearable actinic flame. A thermit-thrower was in ac
tion. Then a third flash. This was farther away. The tumult died suddenly, but the green light-beam continued its motion.
Tommy was snapping questions. Aten spoke, and choked upon his words. Tommy swore in a sudden raging passion and then turned a chalky face toward the other two men from Earth.
УThe prisoners!Ф he said in a hoarse voice. УThe men from Rahn! They broke loose. They rushed an arsenal. With hand weapons and a thermit-thrower they fought their way to a place where the big vehicles are kept. They raided a dwellingtower on the way and seized women. TheyТve gone off on the metal roads through the jungle!Ф He tried to ease his collar. Aten, still watching the green beam, croaked another sentence. УThose devils have got Evelyn!Ф cried Tommy hoarsely. УMy god! AtenТs wife, and his. . . .У He jerked a hand toward the Councilor. УFifty womenЧgone through the jungle with them, toward Rahn! Those devils have got Evelyn!Ф
He whirled upon Aten, seizing his shoulder, shaking the man as he roared questions.
УNo chance of catching them.Ф Far away, in the jungle, the infinitely vivid actinic flame blazed for several seconds.
УTheyТve sprayed thermit on the road. ItТs melted and ruined. ItТd take hours to haul the ground vehicles past the gap. TheyТve got arms and lights. They can fight off the beasts and Ragged Men. TheyТll make Rahn. And thenФЧhe shook with the rage that possessed himЧФJacaroТs there with those gunmen of his and his friends the Ragged Men!Ф

HE seemed to control himself with a terrific effort. He turned to the white-bearded Councilor, whose bearing was that of a man stunned by disaster. Tommy spoke measuredly, choosing words with a painstaking care, clipping the words crisply as he spoke.
The Councilor stiffened. Old as he was, an undeniable fighting light came into his eyes. He barked orders right and left. men woke from the paralysis of shock and fled upon errands of his command. And Tommy turned to Denham and Smithers.
УThe women will be safe until dawn,Ф he said evenly. УOur late prisoners canТt lose the wayЧaluminum roads that are no longer much used lead between all the citiesЧbut they wonТt
dare stop in the jungles. TheyТll go straight on through. They should reach Rahn at dawn or a little before. And at dawn our air fleet will be over the city and theyТll give back the women, unharmed, or weТll turn their own trick on them, by God! ItТd be better for Evelyn to die of gas than asЧas the Ragged Men would kill her!Ф
His hands were clenched and he breathed noisily for an instant. Then he swallowed and went on in the same unnatural calm:
УSmithers, youТre going to stay behind, with part of the air fleet. YouТll get aloft before dawn and shoot down any strange aircraft. They might try to stalemate us by repeating their threat, with our guns over Rahn. IТll give orders.Ф
He turned again to the Councilor, who nodded, glanced at Smithers, and repeated the command.
УYou, sir,Ф he spoke to Denham, УyouТll come with me. ItТs your right, I suppose. And weТll go down and get ready.Ф
He led the way steadily toward a door. But he reached up to his collar, once, as if he were choking, and ripped away collar and coat and all, unconscious of the resistance of the cloth.

THAT night the Golden City made savage preparation for war. Ships were loaded and ranged in order. Crews armed themselves, and helped in the loading and arming of other ships. Oddly enough, it was to Tommy that men came to ask if the directing apparatus for the Death Mist should be carried. The Death Mist could, of course, be used as a gas alone, drifting with the wind, or it could be directed from a distance. This had been done on Earth, with the directional impulses sent blindly down the Tube merely to keep the Mist moving always. The controlling apparatus could be carried in a monster freight plane. Tommy ordered it done. Also he had the captured planes from Rahn refitted for flight by replacing their smashed propelling grids. Fresh crews of men for these ships organized themselves.
When the fleet took off there was only darkness in all the world. The unfamiliar stars above shone bright and very near as TommyТs ship, leading, winged noiselessly up and down and straight away from the play of prismatic lights above the city. Behind him, silhouetted against that many-colored glow, were
the angular shapes of many other noiseless shadows. The ornithopters with their racket would start later, so the planes would be soaring above Rahn before their presence was even suspected. The rest of the fleet flew in darkness.

THE flight above the jungle would have been awe-inspiring at another time. There were the stars above, nearer and brighter than those of Earth. There was no Milky Way in the firmament of this universe. The stars were separate and fewer in number. There was no moon. And below there was only utter, unrelieved darkness from which now and again beastsounds arose. They were clearly audible on board the silent air fleet. Roarings, bellowings, and hoarse screamings. Once the ships passed above a tumult as of unthinkable monsters in deadly battle, when for an instant the very clashing of monstrous jaws was audible and a hissing sound which seemed filled with deadly hate.
Then lightsЧfew of them, and dim ones. Then blazing fires
ЧRagged Men, camped without the walls of Rahn or in some gold-walled courtyard where the jungle thrust greedy, invading green tentacles. The air fleet circled noiselessly in a huge batlike cloud. Then things came racing from the darkness, down below, and there was a tumult and a shouting, and presently the hilarious, insanely gleeful uproar of the Ragged Men. TommyТs face went gray. These were the escaped prisoners, arrived actually after the air fleet which was to demand the return of their captives.
Tommy wet his lips and spoke grimly to his pilot. There were six men and many Death-Mist bombs in his ship. He was asking if communication could be had with the other ships. It was wise to let Rahn know at once that avengers lurked overhead for the captives just delivered there.
For answer, a green signal-beam shot out. It wavered here and there. Tommy commanded again. And as the signal-beam flickered, he somehow sensed the obedience of the invisible ships about him. They were sweeping off to right and left. Bombs of the Death Mist were dropping in the darkness. Even in the starlight, Tommy could see great walls of pale vapor building themselves up above the jungle. And a sudden confused noise of yapping defiance and raging hatred came up
from the city of Rahn. But before dawn came there was no other sign that their presence was known.

THE ornithopters came squeaking and rattling in their heavy flight just as the dull-red sun of this world peered above the horizon. The tree-fern fronds waved languidly in the morning breeze. The walls and towers of Rahn gleamed bright gold, in parts, and in parts they seemed dull and scabrous with some creeping fungus stuff, and on one side of the city the wall was overwhelmed by a triumphant tide of green. There the jungle had crawled over the ramparts and surged into the city. Three of the towers had their bases in the welter of growing things, and creepers had climbed incredibly and were still climbing to enter and then destroy the man-made structures.
But about the city there now reared a new rampart, rising above the tree-fern tops: there was a wall of the Death Mist encompassing the city. No living thing could enter or leave the city without passing through that cloud. And at TommyТs order it moved forward to the very encampments of the Ragged Men.
He spoke, beginning his ultimatum. But a movement below checked him. On a landing stage that was spotted with molds and lichens, women were being herded into clear view. They were the women of the Golden City. Tommy saw a tiny figure in khakiЧEvelyn! Then there was a sudden uproar from an encampment of the Ragged Men. His eyes flicked there, and he saw the Ragged Men running into and out of the tall wall of Death Mist. And they laughed uproariously and ran into and out of the Mist again.
His pilot dived down. The Ragged Men yelled and capered and howled derisively at him. He saw that they removed masklike things from their faces in order to shout, and donned them again before running again into the Mist. At once he understood. The Ragged Men had gas masks!
Then, a sudden cracking noise. Three men had opened fire with rifles from below. Their garments were drab-colored, in contrast to the vivid tints of the clothing of the inhabitants of Rahn. They were JacaroТs gunmen. And a great freight carrier from Yugna veered suddenly, and a bluish flash burst out before it, and it began to flutter helplessly down into the city beneath.
The weapons of TommyТs fleet were useless, since the citizens of Rahn were protected by gas masks. And TommyТs fighting ships were subject to the same rifle fire against their propelling grids that had defeated the fleet from Rahn. The only thing the avenging fleet could now accomplish was the death of the women it could not save.

CHAPTER IX
War!
A huge ornithopter came heavily out on the landing stage in the city of Rahn. Its crew took their places. With a creaking and rattling noise it rose toward the invading fleet. From its filigree cockpit sides, men waved green branches. A green light wavered from the big plane that carried the bearded Council man and Denham. That plane swept forward and hovered above the ornithopter. The two flying things seemed almost fastened together, so closely did their pilots maintain that same speed and course. A snaky rope went coiling down into the lower shipТs cockpit. A burly figure began to climb it hand over hand. A second figure followed. A third figure, in the drab clothing that distinguished JacaroТs men from all others, wrapped the rope about himself and was hauled up bodily. And Tommy had seen Jacaro but once, yet he was suddenly grimly convinced that this was Jacaro himself. The two planes swept apart. The ornithopter descended toward the landing stage of Rahn. The freight plane swept toward the ship that carried Tommy. Again the snaky rope coiled down. And Tommy swung up the fifteen feet that alone separated the two soaring planes, and looked into the hard, amused eyes of Jacaro where he sat between two other emissaries of Rahn. One of them was half naked and savage, with the light of madness in his eyes. A Ragged Man. The other was lean and desperate, despite the colored tunic of a civilized man that he wore.

ELLO,Ф said Jacaro blandly. УWe come up to talk things over.Ф
Tommy gave him the briefest of nods. He looked at Denham