"Fredrik Pohl - Callistan Tomb" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pohl Frederick)

тАЬAND now we wait for the whole world to explode," said Vogel wearily. "Is there any reason why
he can't do it?"
 Foley rubbed his brow. "It'll take quite a while to open the lamp without smashing it up," he said.
"Maybe he will smash it. He'll have to turn it off and work in the dark, and once you get the case off it's a
delicate little machine,"
Rawson was listening with half an ear. He thought he heard a vague clanging soundтАФuntraceable.
"Listen to that," he said. "Where does it come from?"
The little foreman looked about sharply, then pressed his ear to the metal casing of the peristaltic
tube. "Wait a minute," he said. Then he opened his mouth wide and rested his teeth on the tube. "Bone
transmission," he explained absently, the words distorted by the configuration of his lips and mouth.
The others followed suit. Rawson almost cried aloud when he heard the regular scrapes and taps
from a mile above. Taking up a bit of rock he smashed it against the casing three times. A moment, and
the noises ceased; there sounded three regular clinks from the surface.
"They know we're alive now," Foley said tensely. "What will they do?" With disconcerting
suddenness the answer came. The warning signal of the peristaltic tube buzzed loudly, and the device
went into rumbling squeaking, clanging action. The three men stared as great chunks of rock vanished up
the shaft.
They looked at each other. "It was never done before," said Foley, "but тАФVogel, you go in first."
Silently the man wedged his shoulders in the mouth of the tube. Systolic and diastolic bands collapsed
and swelled, and he was smoothly carried up out of sight. Hastily the two others crammed themselves
into the mouth of the device.
Rawson felt the walls of the tube with his hands. They seemed at once slimy and rugged as they
weirdly sucked him with irreasistible force to the surface. He tilted his head back and let his lamp lay on
the feet of Foley, a few yards above him.
"Any trouble down there?" called back the foreman.
"No," said Rawson grimly, "I was just wondering if we'll reach the surface before Pyle opens his
lamp." He gave a sudden cry as an abnormally tight systolic band closed on him. "Are there any more
narrow ones up there?" he asked. "I nearly got fractured hip just now."
"That was defective, I think," called down Foley. "I noticed it myself. Keep calm, man. We aren't
through yet."
The clanging action of the bands became noisier, and Rawson, though he couldn't be sure, thought
that their speed had been increased.
For many long minutes he tried to coordinate his breathing with the rhythmical pulsings of the tube,
and again looked up when Foley shouted for his attention. "Vogel says he sees light ahead," called the
little roan. "They must have put a lamp in the shaft for us."
"That's good," Rawson tried to say, but he had a little picture brought to mind of the crazed Pyle
tinkering at his murderous device far down below in the dark. And the picture included also a boy who
looked like his brother, except for the blotched red swellings of the Sickness, and a tiny, furious star that
shot swiftly around a calcined and blackened planet.
And then he was out of the tube and in the light of the distant sun.

тАЬCUT IT out!" snapped Foley at the men swarming around with inane congratulations. "There's a
maniac loose down there. He's trying to open his lamp and excite the radium in the mine. He'll blow up
the planet! Have you got anything to stop him?"
Camp Supervisor Teck stiffened. "Finney," he ordered, "Run for the Chief Engineer. Tell him to rig a
blanket wave between frequencies three and three point two." He turned again to Foley. "If he doesn't
get it open in the next two minutes we're safe. And if he does . . . we'll never know it. How was it going
through the tube?"
"No trouble, except a couple of tight bands. Are you going to send a rescue crew down that way?"
"I think we'd better. If they don't get the blanket wave set up in a hurry we'll have to." Swiftly he