"Murray Leinster - The Pirates of Zan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

"There was an old-fashioned way to make ozone . . ." When Hoddan nodded, a little surprised, the ambassador said,
"By all means go ahead! You should be able to get parts from your room vision-receiver. I'll have some tools given
you." Then he added, Diplomacy has to understand the things that control events. Once it was social position. For a
time it was weapons. Then it was commerce. Now it's technology. But I wonder how you'll use the ionization of air to
protect yourself from kidnapers! Don't tell me! I'd rather try to

He waved his hand in cordial dismissal and an embassy servant showed Hoddan to his quarters. Ten minutes later
j-nother staff man brought him tools. He was left alone.
He delicately disassembled the set in his room and began to put some of the parts together in a novel but wholly
rational fashion. The science of electronics, like the science of mathematics, had progressed away beyond the point
where all of it had practical application. One could spend a lifetime learning things that research had discovered in the
post, and industry had never found a use for. On Zan, illustriously reading pirated books, Hoddan hadn't known where
utility stopped. He'd kept on learning long after a practical man would have stopped studying to get a paying job.
Any electronic engineer could have made the device he tow assembled. It only needed to be wanted, and
apparently be was the first person to want it. In this respect it was like the receptor that had gotten him into trouble.
As he put the small parts together, he felt a certain loneliness. A man Hoddan's age needed to have some girl admire
him from time to time. If Nedda had been sitting cross-legged before bnn, listening raptly while he explained, Hoddan
would probably have been perfectly happy. But she wasn't. It wasn't likely she ever would be. Hoddan scowled.
Inside of an hour he'd made a hand-sized, five watt, wave-nide projector of waves of eccentric form. In the beam of
mat projector, air became ionized. Air became a high-re-
sistance conductor comparable to nichrome wire, when and where the projector sent its microwaves.
He was wrapping tape about the pistol-like hand-grip when a servant brought him a scribbled note. It had been
handed in at the embassy gate by a woman, who fled after leaving it. It looked like Nedda's handwriting. It read like
Nedda's phrasing. It appeared to have been written by somebody in a highly emotional state. But it wasn't quiteтАФnot
absolutely тАФconvincing.
He went to find the ambassador. He handed over the note. The ambassador read it and raised his eyebrows. .
"Well?"
 "It could be authentic," admitted Hoddan.
"In other words," said the ambassador, "you are not sure that it is a booby trapтАФan invitation to a date with the
police?"
"I'm not sure," said Hoddan. "I think I'd better bite. If I have any illusions left after this morning, I'd better find it out.
I thought Nedda liked me quite a bit."
"I make no comment," observed the ambassador. "Can I help you in any way?"
"I have to leave-the embassy," said Hoddan, "and there's almost a solid line of police outside the walls. Could I
borrow some old clothes, a few pillows, and a length of rope?"
Half an hour later ,a rope uncoiled itself at the very darkest outside corner of the embassy wall. It dangled clown to
the ground. This was at the rear of the embassy enclosure. The night was bright with stars, and the city's towers
glit-tered with many lights. But here there was almost complete blackness and that silence of a city which is sometimes
so companionable.
The rope remained hanging' from the wall. No light reached the ground there. The tiny crescent of Walden's farthest
moon cast an insufficient glow. Nothing could be Seen by it.
The rope went up, as if it had been lowered merely to make sure that it was long enough for its purpose. Then it
descended again. This time a figure dangled at its end.
It came down, swaying a little. It reached the blackest part of the shadow at the wall's base. It stayed there.
Nothing happened. The figure rose swiftly, hauled up in rapid pullings of the rope. Then the line came down again
and again a figure descended. But this figure moved. The rope swayed and oscillated. The figure came down a good
halfway to the ground. It paused, and then descended with much movement to two-thirds of the way from the top.
There something seemed to alarm it. It began to rise with violent writhings of the rope. It climbed.
There was a crackling noise. A stun-pistol. The figure seemed to climb more frantically. More cracklings. They were
stun-pistol charges and there were tiny sparks where they hit. The dangling figure seemed convulsed. It went limp,