"Eric Frank Russel - The Ultimate Invader" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russell Eric Frank)

"Forget them," advised Lawson. "You know nothing of either."
"Maybe not, but I do know this: they won't like it when we fill the ship with a
lethal gas."
"They'll laugh themselves silly. And it won't pay you to make my vessel
uninhabitable."
"No?"
"Nol Because those already out of it will have to stay out. Most of the others will
get out fast in spite of anything you can do to prevent their escape. After that, they'll
have no choice but to settle down and live here. I would not like that if I were you. I
wouldn't care for it one little bit."
"Wouldn't you?"
"Not if I were you which, fortunately, I am not. A world soon becomes mighty
uncomfortable when you've got to share it with hard-to-catch enemies steadily
breeding a thousand to
your one."
Kasine jerked and queried with some apprehension, "Mean to say they'll actually
remain here and increase that fast?"
"What else would you expect them to do once you've taken away their sanctuary?
Go jump in the lake just to please you? They're intelligent, I tell you. They will
survive even if they have to paralyze every one of your kind in sight and make it
 permanent."
The gong clanged again. Inserting the ear-plug, Kasine lis-tened, scowled, shoved
it back into its place. For a short time he sat glowering across the desk. When he did
speak it was
irefully.
"Two more," he said. "Flat out."
Registering a thin smile, Lawson suggested, "Why not leave my ship alone and let
me see Markhamwit?"
"Get this into your head," retorted Kasine. "If any and every crackpot who chose
to land on this planet could walk straight in to see the Great Lord there would have
been trou-ble long ago. The Great Lord would have been assassinated ten
times over."
"He must be popular!"
"You are impertinent. You do not appear to realize the peril of your own
position." Leaning forward with a grunt of discomfort, Kasine hushed his tones in
sheer awe of himself. "Outside that door are those empowered merely to ask ques
tions. Here, within this room, it is different. Here, I make decisions."
"Takes you a long time to get to them," said Lawson, unim-pressed.
Ignoring it, the other went on, "1 can decide whether or not your mouth gives
forth facts. If I deem you a liar, I can decide whether or not it is worth turning to less
tender means of obtaining the real truth. If I think you too petty to make even your
truths worth having, I can decide when, where and how we. shall dispose of you."
He slowed down by way
of extra emphasis. "All this means that I can order your im-mediate death."
"The right to blunder isn't much to boast about," Lawson told him.
"I do not think your effective removal would be an error," Kasine countered.
"Those creatures in your ship are impotent
so far as this room is concerned. What is to prevent me from having you
destroyed?"
"