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

worked his way along it up to a peculiar-looking bulge. The whole immense
structure
vanished, leaving men and boats in empty space.

Sawtelle gasped. "Snowden! Are you holding 'em?" "No, sir. Faster than light;
hyperspace, sir."

"Mr. Ashby, did you have your interspace rigs set?" "No, sir. I didn't think of
it, sir."

"Doctor Cummings, why weren't yours out?"

"I didn't think of such a thing, either-any more than you did," Sandra said.

Ashby, the Communications Officer, had been working the radio. "No reply from
anyone, sir," he reported.

"Oh, no!" Sandra exclaimed. Then, "But look! They're firing pistols-especially
the one
wearing number fourteen-but pistols?"

"Recoil pistols-sixty-three-for emergency use in case of power failure," Ashby
explained. "That's it . . . but I can't see why all their power went out at
once. But
Fourteen-that's Hilton-is really doing a job with that sixty-three. He'll be
here in a couple
of minutes."

And he was. "Every power unit out there-suits and boats both-drained," Hilton
reported.
"Completely drained. Get some help out there fast!"

In an enormous structure deep below the surface of a far-distant world a group
of
technicians clustered together in front of one section of a two-miles-long
control board.
They were staring at a light that had just appeared where no light should have
been.

"Someone's brain-pan will be burned out for this," one of the group radiated
harshly.
"That unit was inactivated long ago and it has not been reactivated."

"Someone committed an error, Your Loftiness?" "Silence, fooll Stretts do not
commit
errors!"

As soon as it was clear that no one had been injured, Sawtelle demanded, "How
about
it, Hilton?"