"Murray Leinster - Exploration Team" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

the use of his new technic, towering on his hind legs and swinging his paws in
the new and grisly fashion. The fight ended promptly. Semper flew and screamed
above the scrap, but as usual did not join in. Note: Nugget, the cub, tried to
mix in but his mother cuffed him out of the way. Sourdough and Sitka ignored
him as usual. Kodius Champion тАШs genes are sound!тАЭ
The noises of the night went on outside. There were notes like organ
tonesтАФsong lizards. There were the tittering giggling cries of
nightwalkersтАФnot to be tittered back at. There were sounds like tack hammers,
and doors closing, and from every direction came noises like hiccups in
various keys. These were made by the improbable small creatures which on Loren
Two took the place of insects.
Huyghens wrote out:
тАЬSitka seemed ruffled when the fight was over He painstakingly used his
trick on every dead or wounded sphex, except those heтАЩd killed with it,
lifting up their heads for his pile-driver-like blows from two directions at
once, as if to show Sourdough how it was done. There was much grunting as they
hauled the carcasses to the incinerator It almost seemedтАФтАЭ

The arrival bell clanged, and Huyghens jerked up his head to stare at
it. Semper, the eagle, opened icy eyes. He blinked.
Noises. There was a long, deep, contented snore from below. Something
shrieked, out in the jungle. Hiccups. Clatterings, and organ notesтАФ The bell
clanged again. It was a notice that a ship aloft somewhere
had picked up the beacon beamтАФwhich only Kodius Company ships should know
aboutтАФand was communicating for a landing. But there shouldnтАЩt be any ships in
this solar system just now! This was the only habitable planet of the sun, and
it had been officially declared uninhabitable by reason of inimical animal
life. Which meant sphexes. Therefore no colony was permitted, and the Kodius
Company broke the law. And there were few graver crimes than unauthorized
occupation of a new planet.
The bell clanged a third time. Huyghens swore. His hand went out to
cut off the beaconтАФbut that would be useless. Radar would have fixed it and
tied it in with physical features like the nearby sea and the Sere Plateau.
The ship could find the place, anyhow, and descend by daylight.
тАЬThe devil!тАЭ said Huyghens, But he waited yet again for the bell to
ring. A Kodius Company ship would double-ring to reassure him. But there
shouldnтАЩt be a Kodius Company ship for months.
The bell clanged singly. The space phone dial flickered and a voice came
out of it, tinny from stratospheric distortion:
тАЬCalling ground! Calling ground! Crete Line ship Odysseus calling ground
on Loren Two. Landing one passenger by boat. Put on your field lights.тАЭ
HuyghensтАЩ mouth dropped open. A Kodius Company ship would be welcome. A
Colonial Survey ship would be extremely unwelcome, because it would destroy
the colony and Sitka and Sourdough and Faro Nell and NuggetтАФand SemperтАФand
carry Huyghens off to be tried for unauthorized colonization and all that it
implied.
But a commercial ship, landing one passenger by boatтАФ There was simply
no circumstances under which that would happen. Not to an unknown, illegal
colony. Not to a furtive station!
Huyghens flicked on the landing-field lights. He saw the glare in the