"E. E. Doc Smith - Skylark 2 - Skylark Three" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

SKYLARK THREE

By Edward E. Smith, Ph.D.


Copyright, 1930, by Experimenter Publications, Inc.
Copyright, 1948, by Edward E. Smith, Ph.D.


CHAPTER 1
DuQuesne Goes Traveling

In the innermost private office of steel, Brookings and DuQuesne stared
at each other
across the massive desk. DuQuesne's voice was cold, his black brows were drawn
together.
"Get this, Brookings, and get it straight. I'm shoving off at twelve
o'clock tonight. My
advice to you is to lay off Richard Seaton, absolutely. Don't do a thing.
NOTHING, understand?
Just engrave these two words upon your brainтАФ HOLD EVERYTHING. Keep on holding
it
until I get back, no matter how long that may be."
"I am very much surprised at your change of front, Doctor. You are the
last man I would
have expected to be scared off after one engagement."
"Don't be any more of a fool than you have to, Brookings. There's a lot
of difference
between being scared and knowing when you are simply wasting effort. As you
remember, I
tried to abduct Mrs. Seaton by picking her off with an attractor from a space-
ship. I would have
bet that nothing could have stopped me. Well, when they located meтАФprobably
with an
automatic Osnomian emission detectorтАФand heated me red-hot while I was still
better than two
hundred miles up, I knew then and there that they had us stopped: that there
was nothing we
could do except go back to my plan, abandon the abduction idea, and kill them
all. Since my
plan would take time, you objected to it, and sent an airplane to drop a five-
hundred-pound bomb
on them. Airplane, bomb and all, simply vanished. It didn't explode, you
remember, just flashed
into light and disappeared. Then you pulled several more of your fool ideas,
such as long-range
bombardment, and so on. None of them worked. Still you've got the nerve to
think that you can
get them with ordinary gunmen! I've drawn you diagrams and shown you figuresтАФ
I've told you