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

hastened. The box teetered and bumped and jounced with the
swift motion of the vehicle that carried it and all the police
around it. Bitter, enraged, and highly unprintable language
came from within. >
The police were charmed. When the Detention Building gate opened for it, and closed again behind it, there was a
welcoming committee in the courtyard. It included a jailer with a bandaged head and a look of vengeful satisfaction on
his face, and no less than the three guards who had been given baths by a high-pressure hose. They wore unamiable
expressions.
And then, while the box swore very bitterly, somebody tenderly loosened a plankтАФbeing careful not to disturb the
diplomatic sealтАФand pulled it away with a triumphant gesture. Then all the police could look into the box. And they
did.
Then there was a dead silence, except for the voice that came from a two-way communicator set inside.
"And now" said the voice from the box, "and now we take our leave of the planet Walden and its happy police
force, who wave to us as our spaceliner lifts toward the skies. The next sound you hear will be that of their
lamentations at our departure."
But the next sound was a howl of fury. The police were very much disappointed to find that it hadn't been Hoddan
in the box, but only one-half of a two-way communication pair. Hoddan had coughed, sneezed and sworn at them, but
from the other instrument somewhere eke. Now he signed off.
The spaceliner was not lifting off just yet. It was still solidly aground in the center of the landing-grid. Hoddan had
bade farewell to his audience from the floor of the ambassador's car, which at that moment was safely within the
extra-territorial circle about the spaceship. He turned off the set and got up and brushed himself off. He got out of the
car. The ambassador followed him and shook his hand.
"You have a touch," said the ambassador sedately. "You seem inspired at times, Hoddan! You have a gift for
in-furiating constituted authority. You may go far!"
He shook hands again and watched Hoddan walk into the lift which raised him to the entrance port of the
spaceliner.
Twenty minutes later the forcefields of the giant landing-grid lifted the liner smoothly out to space. The vessel
went out to five planetary diameters, where its Lawlor drive could take hold of relatively unstressed space. There the
ship jockeyed for line, and then there was that curious, momentary disturbance of all one's sensations which was the
effect of the over-drive field going on. Then everything was normal again, except that the liner was speeding for the
planet Krim at something more than thirty times the speed of light.
Normalcy extended through all the galaxy so far inhabited by men. There were worlds on which there was peace,
and worlds on which there was tumult. There were busy, restful young worlds, and languid, weary old ones. From the
Near Rim to the farthest of occupied systems, planets circled their suns, and men lived on them, and every man took
himself seriously and did not quite believe that the universe had existed before he was born or would long survive his
loss.
Time passed. Comets let out vast streamers like bridal veils and swept toward and around their suns. The liner
bearing Hoddan sped throug the void.
In time it made a landfall on the Planet Krim. He went aground and observed the spaceport city. It was new and
bustling with tall buildings and traffic jams and a feverish conviction that the purpose of living was to earn more
money this year than last. Its spaceport was chaotically busy. Hoddan had time for swift sight-seeing in one city only.
He saw slums and gracious public buildings, and went back to the spaceport and the liner which then rose upon the
landing-grid's forcefields until Krim was a great round ball below it. Then there was again a jockeying for line, and the
liner winked out of sight and was again journeying at thirty times the speed of light.
Again time passed. In one of the most remote galaxies a super-nova flamed, and on a rocky, barren world a small
living thing squirmed experimentallyтАФto mankind the one event was just as important as the other.
But presently the liner from Walden via Krim appeared on Darth as the tiniest of shimmering pearly specks against
the blue. To the north and east and west of the spaceport, rugged mountains rose steeply. Patches of snow showed
here and there, and naked rock reared boldly in spurs and precipices. But there were trees on all the lower slopes, and
there was not really a timber line.