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

efficiency. And men who have had their pants scorched off them are not apt to think too clearly. Hoddan felt a certain
confidence increase in his mind. He'd worked the thing out very nicely. If ionization made air a high-resistance
conductor, then an ionizing beam would make a high-resistance short between the power terminals of a stun-pistol.
With the power a stun-pistol carried, that short would get hot. So would the pistol. It would get hot enough, in fact,
to scorch cloth in contact with .it. Which had happened.
If the effect had been produced in the soles of policemen's feet, Hoddan would have given every cop a hot-foot.
But since they carried their sun-pistols in their hip-pockets . . .
The thought of Nedda diminished his satisfaction. The note could be pure forgery, or the police could have learned
about it through the treachery of the servant she sent to the embassy with it. It would be worth while to know. He
headed toward the home of her father. If she were loyal to him, it would complicate things considerably. But he felt it
necessary to find out.
He neared the spot where Nedda lived. This was an especially desirable residential area. The houses were large and
gracefully designed, and the gardens were especially lush. Presently he heard music ahead. He went on. He came to a
place where strolling citizens had paused under the trees to listen to the melody and the sound of voices that
accom-panied it. The music and festivity was in Nedda's name. She was having a party, on the night of the terrible day
in which he'd been framed for life imprisonment.
It was a shock. Then there was a rush of vehicles, and police trucks were disgorging cops before the door. They
formed a cordon about the house, and some knocked and were admitted in haste. Then Hoddan nodded dourly to
himself.
His escape from the embassy was now known. No less certainly, the failure of the trap Nedda's note had baited had
been reported. The police were now turning the whole city into a trap for one Bron Hoddan. Soon they'd have cops
from other cities pouring in to aid in the search. And cer-tainly and positively they'd take every measure they could to
keep him from getting back to-the embassy.
It was a situation that would have appalled Hoddan only that morning. Now, though, he only shook his head sadly.
He moved on. Somehow he must get back into the embassy. It was not far from Nedda's house to a public-safety
kiosk. He entered it. It was unattended, of course. It was simply an out-of-door installation where cops could be
summoned, fires reported, or emergencies described by citizens inde-pendently of the regular home communicators. It
had oc-curred to Hoddan tha't the planetary authorities would be greatly pleased to hear of a situation, in a place, that
would seem to hint at his presence. There were all sorts of public
services that would be delighted to operate impressively in their own lines. There were bureaus which would rejoice at
a chance to show off their efficiency.
He used his micro-wave generatorтАФwhich at short enough range would short-circuit anythingтАФupon the apparatus
in the kiosk. It was perfectly simple, if one knew how. He worked with a sort of tender thoroughness, shorting this
item, shorting that, giving this frantic emergency call, stating that baseless lie. When he went out of the kiosk he
walked briskly toward an appointment he had made.
And presently the murmur of the city at night had new sounds added to it. They began as a faint, confused clamor
at the edges of the city. The uproar moved centralward and grew louder. There were clanging bells and sirens and
beeper-horns warning all non-official vehicles to keep out of the way. On the raised-up expressway snorting metal
monsters rushed with squealing excitement. On the fragrant lesser streets, smaller vehicles rushed with
proportionately louder howlings. Police trucks poured out of their cubbyholes and plunged valiantly through the dark.
Broadcast units signaled emer-gency and cut off the air to make the placid ether waves available to authority.
All these noises and all this tumult moved toward a single point. The outer parts of the city regained their former
quiet. But in the mid-city area the noise of racing vehicles clamoring for right-of-way grew louder and louder. The
sound was deafening as the vehicles converged on the large open square in front of the Interstellar Embassy. From
every street and avenue fire-fighting equipment poured into that square. In between and behind, hooting loudly for
precedence, were the police trucks. Emergency vehicles of all the civic bureaus appeared, all of them with immense
conviction of their importance.
It was a very large, open square, that space before the embassy. From its edge, the monument to the first settlers in
the center looked small. But even that vast plaza filled up with trucks of every imaginable variety, from the hose
towers which could throw streams of water four hundred feet straight up, to the miniature trouble-wagons of