"E. E. Doc Smith - The Galaxy Primes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

'Why, self-respect ... common decency ... respect for one's fellow man ... family ties ...' Garlock was floundering; to
be called upon to explain his ingrained antipathy to such a custom was new to his experience.
'You are silly. Worse, squeamish. Worst, supremely illogical.' The Arpalone paused, then went on as though trying to
educate a hopelessly illogical inferior. 'While we do not kill Arpales purposely - except when they over-breed - why
waste good meat as fertilizer? If a diet is wholesome, nutritious, well-balanced and tasty, what shred of difference
can it possibly make what its ingredients once were?' 'Well, I'll be damned,' Garlock quit.
'And blasted,' Belle agreed. 'This whole deal makes me sick at the stomach and I think my face is turning green too.
But
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I'm devilishly and gleefully glad, Clee, that I was here to hear somebody give you cards, spades, and big casino and
still beat hell out of you at your own game of coldblooded logic!'
'We gunners must go now. Would you like to come along with us and see the end of this particular breeding-hole of
sencors?'
At high speed the seven flew back along the line of advance of the winged tiger horde, across a barren valley, toward
and to the side of a mountain.
An area almost a mile square of that mountain's side was a burned, blasted, churned, pocked, cratered and flaming
waste; and the four helicopters were still working on it. High-energy beams blasted, fairly volatilizing the ground as
they struck in as deep as they could be driven. High-explosive shells bored deep and detonated, hurling shattered
rock and soil and yellow smoke far and wide; establishing new craters by destroying the ones existing a moment
before.
While it seemed incredible that any living thing larger than a microbe could emerge under its own power from such a
hell of energy, many winged tigers were doing soтАФapparently being blown aloft with the hitherto undisturbed
volume of soil in which the creatures had been. Most of them were not fully grown; some were so immature as to be
unrecognizable to an untrained eye; but from all four helicopters hand-guns snapped and cracked. Nothing was
leaving that field of carnage alive.
'What are you gunners supposed to be doing here?' Garlock asked.
'Oh, the 'copters will be leaving pretty soon - they've got other places to go. But they won't get them all - some of the
hatches are too deep - so we'll stick around for two-three days to kill the late-hatchers as they come out.'
'I see.' And Garlock probed. 'There are four cells that they won't reach. Shall I bomb 'em out?'
'I'll ask.' The slitted red eyes widened and he sent out a call. 'Commander Knahr, can you hop over here a minute? I
want you to meet these things we've been hearing about. They look human, but they really aren't. They're killers,
with more stuff and more brains than any of us ever heard of.'
Another Arpalone appeared, indistinguishable to Tellurian eyes from any one of the others.
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'But why do you want to mix into something that's none of your business?' Knahr was neither officious nor
condemnatory. He simply could not understand.
'Since you have no concept of our quality of curiosity, just call it education. The question is, do you or do you not
want those four deeply-buried cells blasted out of existence?'
'Of course I do.'
'Okay. You've got all of 'em you're going to get. Tell your 'copters to give us about five miles clearance, and we'll all
fall back, too.'
They drew back, and there were four closely-spaced explosions of such violence that one raggedly mushroom-
shaped cloud went up into the stratosphere and one huge, ragged crater yawned where once churned ground had
been.
'But that's atomicV Knahr gasped the thought. 'Fall-out!'
'No fall-out. Complete conversion. Have you got a counter?'
They had. They tested. There was nothing except the usual background count.
There's no life left underground, so you needn't keep this squad of gunners tied up here,' Garlock told the
commander. 'Before we go, I want to ask a question. You have visitors once in a while from other solar systems, so
you must have a faster-than-light drive. Can you tell me anything about it?"