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

"All right," said Hoddan indignantly. "I'll raise it somehow. If they're too stupid to save money . . . How much
bond?"
"The court will take it under advisement and will notify the defendant within the customary two hours," said the
justice at top speed. He swallowed. "The defendant will be kept in close confinement until the bond is posted. The
hearing is ended."
He did not look at Hoddan. Courtroom guards put stun-pistols against Hoddan's body and ushered him out.
Presently his friend Derec came to see him in the tool-steel cell in which he had been placed. Derec looked white
 and stricken.
"I'm in trouble because I'm your friend, Bron," he said miserably, "but I asked permission to explain things to you.
After all, I caused your arrest. I urged you not to connect up your receptor without permission!"
"I know," growled Hoddan, "but there are some people so stupid you have to show them everything. I didn't
realize that there are people so stupid you can't show them anything!"
"You showed something you didn't intend," said Derec miserably. "Bron, IтАФI have to tell you. When they went to
charge the carbon bins at the power station, theyтАФthey found a dead man, Bron!"
Hoddan sat up.
"What's that?"
"Your machine . . . killed him. He was outside the building at the foot of a tree. Your receptor killed him through a
stone wall! It broke his bones and killed him." Derec wrung his hands. "At some stage of power-drain your receptor
.makes death rays!"
Hoddan had had a good many shocks today. When Derec arrived, he'd been incredulously comparing the
treatment he'd received and the panic about him, with the charges made against him in court. They didn't add up. This
new, pre-
viously undisclosed item left him speechless. He goggled at Derec, who fairly wept.
"Don't you see?" asked Derec pleadingly. "That's why I had to tell the police it was you. We can't have death raysl
The police can't let anybody go free who knows how to make them! This is a wonderful world, but there are lots of
crack-pots. They'll do anything I The police daren't let it even be suspected that death rays can be made! That's why
you weren't charged with murder. People all over the planet would start doing research, and sooner or later would
come up with what you discovered. With such a tool in the hands of the crackpots, life would be cheap, indeed! For
the sake of our civilization your secret has to be suppressedтАФand you with it. It's terrible for you, Bron, but there's
nothing else to do!"
Hoddan said dazedly:
"But I only have to put up a bond to be released!"
"The justice," said Derec tearfully, "didn't name it in court, because it would have to be published. But he's set your
bond at fifty million credits! Nobody could raise that for you, Bron! And with the reason for it what it is, you'll never
be able to get it reduced!"
"But anybody who looks at the plans of the receptor will know it can't make death rays!" protested Hoddan
blankly.
"Nobody will look," said Derec tearfully. "Anybody who knows how to make it will have to be locked up. They
checked the patent examiners. They've forgotten. Nobody dared examine the device you had working. They'd be jailed
if they understood it! Nobody will ever risk learning how to make death raysтАФnot on a world as civilized as this, with
so many people anxious to kill everybody else. You have to be locked up forever, Bron. You have to!"
Hoddan said inadequately:
"Oh."
"I beg your forgiveness for having you arrested," said Derec in absymal sorrow, "but I couldn't do anything but tell
. . ."
Hoddan stared at his cell wall. Derec went away weeping. He was an admirable, honorable, not-too-bright young
man
who had been Hoddan's only friend.
Hoddan stared blankly at nothing. As an event, it was preposterous, and yet if was wholly natural. When in the
course of human events somebody does something that puts somebody else to the trouble of adjusting the numb