"E. E. Doc Smith - Masters of Space" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

overrides many Navy regulations. Disobedience of my orders constitutes mutiny
and I
can-and will-have you put in irons and sent back to Terra for court-martial. Now
let's go
back."

In the control room, Hilton said, "The target has a mass of approximately five
hundred
metric tons. There is also a significant amount of radiation characteristic of
uranexite.
You will please execute search, Captain Sawtelle."

And Captain Sawtelle ordered the search.

"What did you do to the big jerk, boss?" Sandra whispered. "What you and Bill
suggested," Hilton whispered back. "Thanks to your analysis of the directive-
pure
gobbledygook if there ever was any-I could. Mighty good job, Sandy."

Ten or fifteen more minutes passed. Then:

"Here's the source of radiation, sir," a searchman reported. "It's a point
source, though,
not an object at this range." "And here's the artifact, sir," Pilot Snowden
said. "We're
coming up on it fast. But . . . but what's a skyscraper skeleton doing out here
in
interstellar space?"

As they closed up, everyone could see that the thing did indeed look like the
metallic
skeleton of a great building. It was a huge cube, measuring well over a hundred
yards
along each edge. And it was empty.

"That's one for the book," Sawtelle said.

"And how!" Hilton agreed. "I'll take a boat . . . no, suits would be better.
Karns,
Yarborough, get Techs Leeds and Miller and suit up."
 "You'll need a boat escort," Sawtelle said. "Mr. Ashley, execute escort Landing
Craft
One, Two and Three."

The three landing craft approached that enigmatic latticework of structural
steel and
stopped. Five grotesquely armored figures wafted themselves forward on pencils
of
force. Their leader, whose suit bore the number "14", reached a mammoth girder
and