"Walter Dean Myers - BrainstormUC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Myers Walter Dean)

Their brains had not been removed. They were not even damaged. They had just stopped working. The people could remember nothing from before the storm. Even simple things were forgotten. Such as how to walk. Most of them were older people. But now they had the minds of babies.

Scientists tried to explain what had happened. Some said that it was the electricity in the air. Others thought it was caused by sun spots. It might have all been forgotten. But for another storm ... and more missing minds.

Two men had been fighting in the street.

They fell down and began to cry. Two lovers

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sat in a London park. Their marriage was set for June. The woman began to suck her thumb. The man wet his pants. A student in Denmark sat under a tree. Suddenly she began to cry and eat her school book. They, too, had lost their minds.

Four hundred minds were gone. One hundred during the first storm. Three hundred during the second. FORTIA, the army of the world, took action. First, the warning. Take cover during all storms. Then, a meeting at headquarters in Switzerland. FORTIA used radio waves to check the earth. Could a force from another planet be the cause? FORTIA officers remembered the Crolon attack thirty years ago. Could they be at it again? They were a very warlike people. Their small planet circled a dying star. The radio wave check cleared the Crolons. The attacks were not from them.



The checks turned up a powerful ray. It swept along the outer edge of the earth. And it was coming from Suffes. Suffes was a dark, unknown planet. A dot in space hundreds of light-years away. It was named after the scientist who had discovered it. Little was known about it. But one thing was certain. Something or someone there was attacking Earth!

FORTIA directed a tele-beam at Suffes. The beam questioned the dark planet.

WHY flTTflCK? WE flfiE NQT flT WflR.

There was no answer. But there was another storm. Late in August four hundred more minds were gone.

Scientists studied the ray. But they learned only one thing. It needed a storm to break through earth's atmosphere. That much they already knew.

FORTIA decided to send a ship. The commander had simple orders. Try to reason with the Suffessians. If reason fails, destroy them.

The trip would be a difficult one. An in-tergalactic ship moved many times the speed of light. Still, the journey would take months. FORTIA decided on a daring plan. Use an old-style space ship. And send it through a time-warp. It could reach Suffes within three days. There was only one problem. Passing through time would change the crew. Each member would age fifteen years!

The spaceship was the Odyssey. The crew was young. They were all around fifteen. The trip would take three days. When they arrived, they would be thirty. Commander Ron Viacom was fourteen. He understood his duty well. He had started training at nine.

The takeoff went well. In three seconds the ship was circling the sun. Karen, the chief engineer, was just about to chart a new course.

"Time-warp dead ahead," she said. Then the instruments went wild.

"Switch to seven bank!" Ron ordered.

"Seven bank switched in!" Karen watched the needles dance crazily. "Seven bank not working, sir!"

"Switch on standby power!" Ron couldn't understand. What was happening to his ship?

"It's not working either!" There was a trace of fear in Karen's voice.

"Engineering!" Ron spoke into his communicator.

Engineering answered.

"What's the power loss?" Ron asked.