"Rocklynne, Ross - Time Wants a Skeleton" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rocklynne Ross)

"I'm all right, Braker. Let me see that ring." His voice was low, controlled, ominous.
"You take a fit?" Braker snapped suspiciously.
"I'm all right." Tony deliberately took Braker's cuffed hands into his own, looked at the gold band inset with the flawed emerald. Revulsion crawled in his stomach, yet he kept his eyes on the ring.
"Where'd you get the ring, Braker?" He kept his glance down.
"WhyЧ'29, I think it was; or '28." Braker's tone was suddenly angry, resentful. He drew away. "What is this, anyway? I got it legal, and so what?"
"What I really wanted to know," said Tony, "was if there was another ring like this oneЧever. I hope not ... I don't know if I do. Damn it!"
"And I don't know what you're talking about," snarled Braker. "I still think you're bats. Hell, flawed emeralds are like fingerprints, never two alike. You know that yourself."
Tony slowly nodded and stepped back. Then he lighted a cigarette, and let the smoke inclose him.
"You fellows stay here," he said, and backed out and bolted the door behind him. He went heavily down the corridor, down a short flight of stairs, then down another short corridor.
He chose one of two doors, jerked it open. A half dozen packages slid from the shelves of what was evidently a closet. Then the other door opened. Tony staggered backward, losing his balance under the flood of packages. He bumped into Laurette Overland. She gasped and started to fall. Tony managed to twist around in time to grab her. They both fell anyway. Tony drew her to him on impulse and kissed her.
She twisted away from him, her face scarlet. Her palm came around, smashed into his face with all her considerable strength. She jumped to her feet, then the fury in her eyes died. Tony came erect, smarting under the blow.
"Sportsmanlike," he snapped angrily.
"You've got a lot of nerve," she said unsteadily. Her eyes went past him. "You clumsy fool. Help me get these packages back on the shelves before daddy or Brie come along. They're Christmas presents, and if you broke any of the wrappingsЧ Come on, can't you help?"
Tony slowly hoisted a large carton labeled with a "Do Not Open Before Christmas" sticker, and shoved it onto the lower rickety shelf, where it stuck out, practically ready to fall again. She put the smaller packages on top to balance it.
She turned, seeming to meet his eyes with difficulty.
Finally she got out, "I'm sorry I hit you like that, lieutenant. I guess it was naturalЧyour kissing me I mean." She smiled faintly at Tony, who was ruefully rubbing his cheek. Then her composure abruptly returned. She straightened.
"If you're looking for the door to the control room, that's it."
"I wanted to see your father," Tony explained.
"You can't see him now. He's plotting our course. In fifteen minutesЧ" She let the sentence dangle. "Brie Masters can help you in a few minutes. He's edging the ship out of the way of a polyhedron."
"Polyhedron?"
"Many-sided asteroid. That's the way we designate them." She was being patronizing now.
"Well, of course. But I stick to plain triangles and spheres and cubes. A polyhedron is a sphere to me. I didn't know we were on the way. Since when? I didn't feel the acceleration."
"Since ten minutes ago. And naturally there wouldn't be any acceleration with an H-H drive. Well, if you want anything, you can talk to Erie." She edged past him, went swinging up the corridor. Tony caught up with her.
"You can help me," he said, voice edged. "Will you answer a few questions?"
She stopped, her penciled brows drawn together. She shrugged. "Fire away, lieutenant."
She leaned against the wall, tapping it patiently with one manicured fingernail.
Tony said, "All I know about the Hoderay-Hammond drive, Miss Overland, is that it reverses the Fitz-Gerald Contraction principle. It makes use of a new type of mechanical advantage. A moving object contracts in the direction of motion. Therefore a stationary object, such as a ship, can be made to move if you contract it in the direction you want it to move. How that's accomplished, though, I don't know."
"By gravitonsЧWhere have you been all your life?"
"Learning," said Tony. "Good manners."
She flushed. Her fingers stopped drumming. "If you realized you were interrupting important work, you'd know why I forget my manners. We were trying to finish this up so daddy could get back to his farewell dinner at the university.
I guess the professors guessed right when they sent hisЧWell, why should I explain that to you?"
"I'm sure," said Tony. "I don't know."
"Well, go on," she said coldly.
Tony lighted a cigarette, offered her one with an apology. She shook her head impatiently.
Tony eyed her through the haze of smoke. "Back there on 1007 I saw a skeleton with a ring on its finger."
She seemed nonplused. "Well. Was it a pretty ring?"
Tony said grimly, "The point is, Braker never got near that skeleton after I saw it, but that same ring is now on his finger."
Startlement showed in her eyes. "That doesn't sound very plausible, lieutenant!"
"No, of course it doesn't. Because then the same ring is in two different places at the same time."
"And of course," she nodded, "that would be impossible. Go on. I don't know what you're getting at, but it certainly is interesting."
"Impossible?" said Tony. "Except that it happens to be the truth. I'm not explaining it away, Miss Overland, if that's your idea. Here's something else. The skeleton is a human skeleton, but it existed before the human race existed"
She shoved herself away from her indolent position. "You must be crazy."
Tony said nothing.
"How did you know?" she said sharply.
"I know. Now you explain the H -H drive, if you will."
"I will!" She said: "Gravitons are the ultimate particle of matter. There are 1846 in a proton, one in an electron, which is the reason why a proton is 1846 times as heavy as an electron.
"Now you can give me a cigarette, lieutenant. I'm curious about this thing, and if I can't get to the bottom of it, my father certainly will."
After a while, she blew out smoke nervously.
She continued, speaking rapidly: "A Wittenberg disrupter tears atoms apart. The free electrons are shunted off into accumulators, where we get power for lighting, cooking, beating and so forth. The protons go into the proton analyzer, where the gravitons are ripped out of them and stored in a special type of spherical field. When we want to move the ship, the gravitons are released. They spread through the ship and everything in the ship.
"The natural place for a graviton is in a proton. The gravitons rush for the protonsЧwhich are already saturated with 1846 gravitons. Gravitons are unable to remain free in three-dimensional space. They escape along the time line, into the past. The reaction contracts the atoms of the ship and everything in the ship, and shoves it forward along the opposite space-time lineЧforward into the future and forward in space. In the apparent space of a second, therefore, the ship can travel thousands of miles, with no acceleration effects.