"Sean McMullen - The Pharaoh's Airship" - читать интересную книгу автора (McMullen Sean)

and drink containers, some garbage bags, a pile of nappies, and a sleeping bag. I peered inside the hatch.
Just below the window was a control panel with several dozen lights and switches, and six small
joysticks. The cabin was heavily padded and insulated.
"Have you any idea how much of the original vehicle is missing?" Taylor asked.
"Ah yes. I conducted some tests to determine that just after I submitted my report. The night that he
left, Stephen dragged the Pharaoh out of the garage and left it sitting on the lawn for about an hour,
according to his mother. From the indentations that it left I estimate that it weighed nearly a ton. The
wreckage recovered, plus Stephen's weight and the rocks, comes to about two thirds of that."
"Yet 98% of the jet fighter was recovered," I added before I could stop myself. Behind Richards
Taylor was frantically shaking his head.
"Well yes, I follow your reasoning," laughed Richards. "I think that the drive unit was still functioning
when the crash tore it loose. It could have flown for miles before finally hitting the sea and sinking. Getting
back to what we did manage to find, though, his consumption of food and use of nappies indicates that
he was sealed inside the cabin for the whole three days from when his mother last saw him to when he hit
the jet. The condition of the catalyst in the air purifier bears out this estimate, too."
Taylor walked over to the pile of twisted metal that was the original Pharaoh and knelt beside the
sample container. Releasing a spring loaded cap she reached in and withdrew a small, dark rock. It had
jagged edges, and gleamed wet in the hangar's floodlights.
"Dr. Richards, I must be frank with you," she said, turning the rock over in her fingers. "The material in
this cylinder is of great strategic importance."
"Really? What is it?"
"I'm afraid I can't say, but we need to know where he got it."
"But he left no maps."
"The microflora attached to the rocks will give us an idea of the depth and latitude, but we need all the
material available."
Richards began to nod reflexively in agreement, then stopped.
"You want to take all the material?" he asked suspiciously.
"That will be necessary, Dr. Richards. I've checked with your government and we have permission--
as long as you think it has no direct bearing on the crash investigation."
"Well, ah, I suppose not." He was reluctant, but he still signed the papers releasing the rocks to us.
"How did your people in the US come to learn about the rock samples so quickly?"
"An investigator from the US recognised the rock sample and had it sent back home for analysis," I
explained as I looked into the container. "What puzzled us, though, was why you included it with your
report."
Annoyance darkened his face for a moment.
"It was just a mistake," he said quickly. "A new assistant misunderstood his instructions."
Taylor and I were very excited as we returned to the car. I suspect that her own feelings were related
to snatching such a secret from under the very nose of a foreign government. I, on the other hand, was
fascinated by Stephen's work. The Pharaoh's simplicity was amazing, but even so it was quite a feat for
an undergraduate student working by himself.
"He must have had help, Adele," I said as we walked. "There was some very skilled welding in the
Pharaoh, and a lot of other high quality work that a short-sighted mathematics student just could not have
mastered."
"I don't know. The seal on the sample canister was not watertight."
"It doesn't have to be. His work is very good where it counts, though."
***

We sent a coded report to Washington over the car's radio, then drove out to Stephen's home. It was a
timber house in an old suburb of Brisbane, with a large garage in the backyard. Richards had already
been out there, looking for clues to the secret of the Pharaoh's propulsion unit. There were none. There