"E. E. Doc Smith - Subspace 2 - Subspace Encounter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

and were married a few minutes later, and Jones and Bernice were not far behind them.

Catastrophe struck-without warning, with split-second speed and with utter and incredible
devastation, reducing the great starship to a fused hulk of destructively radioactive metal.
Its cause? There was nothing whatever to indicate the source, no follow-up attack; and
for almost all aboard the Procyon it was instant death. Like all starship disasters, there
was no time for any report to be made.

The four-Carlyle Deston, Barbara Warner Deston, Theodore Jones. and Bernice Burns
Jones-being highly psychic, had enough warning of catastrophe so that each couple
reached a lifeboat. The Destons found already in their lifeboat, studying subspace, one
Doctor Andrew Adams, a Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study. These five were the
only survivors of the disaster to get back to civilization.

Decontamination-thorough but most unpleasant-followed; as soon as it was safe to do
so, they reboarded the hulk, finding all subspace gear inoperable. Most normal-space
equipment, however, would work-after a fashion. It would take a year or more to reach
the nearest solar system, but they had plenty of power, air, water, and food.

Shortly after the shipwreck, both girls became pregnant; and long before the year was
up, it became evident that both periods of gestation wore going to be extraordinarily
long. This gave super-mathematician Adams new data with which to work, and he proved
that time was not an absolute constant, but could, under certain conditions, become a
parameter. (Cf The Adams Theory and The Adams Effect.) He deduced, (1) that the
Procyon had struck a field of subspatial force that he called the "zeta" field; (2) that the
entire mass of the ship and all its contents were charged to an extremely high potential
with a force more or less analogous to that which produces lightning; (3) that the ships
which had disappeared had been completely destroyed by the discharge of zeta force to


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Recorded in Subspace Explorers.

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a planet upon approach; and (4) that extreme precautions had to be observed if they
themselves were not to be destroyed in the same way.

In due time-or rather, about five months after due time two babies were born. Theodore
Warner Deston and Barbara Bernice Jones.

A barren planet was found and plans were made to rid the Procyon of zeta force.
Extreme caution was observed. The force was discharged in successive decrements by
means of twenty-five-mile lengths of ultra-high-tensile wire. With all potentials at the zero
of normal space, the subspace communicators were again in working order and Deston
reported in. It was of course a simple matter for the subspace-going machine shops to
jury-rig enough subspace gear for the Procyon to get back to her home port under her
own power.

Both Deston and Jones were promoted on the spot; but, since both were now married,
neither could serve InStell (The Interstellar Corporation) in either subspace or space.