"Lensman 07 - Masters of the Vortex (The Vortex Blaster)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

As soon as they could extract certain data from Luda's mind, they could take Lune in short order. With Lune solidly theirs, they could bomb Dhil into submission in two years. The goal of many generations would have been reached. He, Darjeeb of Nhal, would have wealth, fame, and-best of all-power!
Gazing gloatingly at his captive with every eye he could bring to bear, Darjeeb strolled over to inspect again her chains and manacles. Let her radiate! No mentality in existence could break his blocks. Physically, however, she had to be watched.
* For the explanation of these somewhat peculiar facts, which is too long to go into here, the student is referred to Transactions of the Planetographical Society; Vol. 283, No. 11, P. 2745. E.E.S.
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The irons were strong; but so was Luda. If she could break free he'd probably have to shoot her, which would be a very bad thing indeed. She hadn't caved in yet, but she would. When he got her to Nhal, where proper measures could be taken, she'd give up every scrap of knowledge she had ever had!
The chains were holding, all eight of them, and Darjeeb kept on gloating as he backed towards his control station. To him Luda's shape was normal enough, since his own was the same, but in the sight of any Tellurian she would have been more than a little queer.
The lower part of her body was somewhat like that of a small elephant; one weighing perhaps four hundred pounds. The skin, however, was clear and fine and delicately tanned; there were no ears or tusks; the neck was longer. The trunk was shorter, divided at the tip to form a highly capable hand; and between the somewhat protuberant eyes of this 'feeding' head there thrust out a boldly Roman, startlingly human nose. The brain in this head was very small, being concerned only with matters of food.
Above this not-too-unbelievable body, however, there was nothing familiar to us of Tellus. Instead of a back there were two pairs of mighty shoulders, from which sprang four tremendous arms, each like the trunk except longer and much stronger. Surmounting those massive shoulders there was an armored, slightly retractile neck which bore the heavily-armored 'thinking' head. In this head there were no mouths, no nostrils. The four equally-spaced pairs of eyes were protected by heavy ridges and plates; the entire head, except for its junction with the neck, was solidly sheathed with bare, hard, thick, tough bone.
Darjeeb's amazing head shone a clean-scrubbed white. But Luda's-the eternal feminine!-was really something to look at. It had been sanded, buffed, and polished. It had been inlaid with bars and strips and scrolls of variously-colored metals; then decorated tastefully in red and green and blue and black enamel; then, to cap the climax, lacquered!
But that was old stuff to Darjeeb; all he cared about was the tightness of the chains immobilizing Luda's hands and feet. Seeing that they were all tight, he returned his attention to his visiplates; for he was not yet in the clear. Enemies might be blasting off after him any minute.
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A light flashed upon his detector panel. Behind him everything was clear. Nothing was coming from Dhil. Ah, there it was, coming in from open space. But nothing could move that fast! A space-ship of some kind ... Gods of the Ancients, how it was coming!
As a matter of fact the lifeboat was coming in at less than one light; the merest crawl, as space-speeds go. That velocity, however, was so utterly beyond anything known to his system that the usually phlegmatic Nhalian stood spellbound for a fraction of a second. Then he drove a hand toward a control. Too late- before the hand had covered half the distance the incomprehensibly fast ship struck his own without impact, jar, or shock.
Both vessels should have been blasted to atoms; but there the stranger was poised motionless beside him. Then, under the urge of a ridiculously tiny jet of flame, she leaped away; covering miles in an instant. Then something equally fantastic happened. She drifted heavily backward, against the full force of her driving blasts!
Only one explanation was possible-inertialessness! What a weapon! With that and Luda-even without Luda-the solar system would be his. No longer was it a question of Nhal conquering Dhil. He himself would become the dictator, not only of Nhal and Dhil and Lune, but also of all other worlds within reach. That vessel and its secrets must be his!
He blasted, then, to match the inert velocity of the smaller craft, and as his ship approached the other he reached out both telepathically-he could neither speak nor hear-and with a spyray to determine the most feasible method of taking over this Godsend.
Bipeds! Peculiar little beasts-repulsive. Only two arms and eyes-only one head. Weak, no weapons-good! Couldn't any of them communicate? Ah yes, there was one-an unusually thin, reed-like creature, bundled up in layer upon layer of fabric....
'I see that you are survivors of a catastrophe in outer space,' Darjeeb began. He correlated instantly, if not sympathetically, the smashed panel and the pilot's bleeding head. If the creature had had a head worthy of the name, it could have wrecked a dozen such frailties with it, and without taking hurt. 'Tell your pilot to let me in, so that I may guide you to safety. Hurry!
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Those will come at any moment who will destroy us all without warning or palaver.'
'I am trying, sir, but I cannot get through to him direct. It will take a few moments.' The strange telepathist began to make motions with her peculiar arms, hands, and fingers. Others of the outlanders brandished various repulsive members and gesticulated with ridiculous mouths. Finally:
'He says he would rather not,' the interpreter reported. 'He asks you to go ahead. He will follow you down."
'Impossible. We cannot land upon this world or its primary, Dhil,' Darjeeb argued, reasonably. 'These people are enemies
-savages-I have just escaped from them. It is death to attempt to land anywhere in this system except on my own world Nhal
-that bluish one over there.'
'Very well, we'll see you there. We're just about out of air, but we can travel that far.'
But that wouldn't do, either, of course. Argument took too much time. He'd have to use force, and he'd better call for help. He hurled mental orders to a henchman, threw out his magnetic grapples, and turned on a broad low-powered beam.
'Open up or die,' he ordered. 'I do not want to blast you open, but time presses and I will if I must.'
Pure heat is hard to take. The portal opened and Darjeeb, after donning armor and checking his ray-guns, picked Luda up and swung nonchalantly out into space. Luda was tough-a little vacuum wouldn't hurt her much. Inside the lifeboat, he tossed his captive into a corner and strode toward the pilot.
'I want to know right now what it is that makes this ship to be without inertia!' Darjeeb radiated, harshly. He had been probing vainly at the pink thing's mind-block. 'Tell your pilot to tell me or I will squeeze it out of his brain.'
As the order was being translated he slipped an arm out of his suit and clamped a huge hand around the pilot's head. But just as he made contact, before he put on any pressure at all, the weakling fainted.
Also, two of his senses registered disquieting tidings. He received, as plainly as though it was intended for him, a welcome which the swaddled-up biped was radiating in delight to an unexpected visitor rushing into the compartment. He saw that that visitor, while it was also a biped, was not at all like the frightened and harmless creatures already cluttering the room.
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It was armed and armored, in complete readiness for strife even with Darjeeb of Nhal.
The bonehead swung his ready weapon-with his build there was no need, ever to turn-and pressed a stud. A searing lance of flame stabbed out. Passengers screamed and fled into whatever places of security were available.
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6: Driving Jets are Weapons
Cloud's swearing wasted no time; he could swear and act simultaneously. He flashed his vessel up near the lifeboat, went inert, and began to match its intrinsic velocity.
He'd have to board, no other way. Even if he had anything to blast it with, and he didn't-his vessel wasn't armed-he couldn't, without killing innocent people. What did he have?
He had two suits of armor; a G-P regulation and his vortex special, which was even stronger. He had his DeLameters. He had four semi-portables and two needle-beams, for excavating. He had thousands of duodec bombs, not one of which could be detonated by anything less violent than the furious heart of a loose atomic vortex.
What else? Well, there was his sampler. He grinned as he looked at it. About the size of a carpenter's hand-axe, with a savage beak on one side and a wickedly-curved, razor-sharp blade on the other. It had a double-grip handle, three feet long. A deceptive little thing, truly, for it was solid dureum. It weighed fifteen pounds, and its ultra-hard, ultra-tough blade could shear through neocarballoy as cleanly as a steel knife slices cheese. Considering what terrific damage a Valerian could do with a space-axe, he should be able to do quite a bit with this-it ought to qualify at least as a space-hatchet.
He put on his armor, set his DeLameters to maximum intensity at minimum aperture, and hung the sampler on a belt-hook. He eased off his blasts. There, the velocities matched. A minute's work with needle-beam, tractors, and pressor sufficed to cut the two smaller ships apart and to dispose of the Nhalian's magnets and cables. Another minute of careful manipulation and his scout was in place. He swung out, locked the port behind him, and entered the lifeboat.
He was met by a high-intensity beam. He had not expected instantaneous, undeclared war, but he was ready for it. Every screen he had was full out, his left hand held poised at hip a screened DeLameter. His return blast was, therefore, a reflection of Darjeeb's bolt, and it did vastly more damage. The hand in which Darjeeb held the projector was the one that had been manhandling the pilot, and it was not quite back inside the
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Nhalian's screens. In the fury of Cloud's riposte, then, gun and hand disappeared, as did also a square foot of panel behind them. But Darjeeb had other hands and other guns and for seconds blinding beams raved against unyielding screens.
Neither screen went down. The Tellurian bolstered his weapons. It wouldn't take much of this stuff to kill the passengers remaining in the saloon. He'd go in with his sampler.
He lugged it up and leaped straight at the flaming projector, with all of his mass and strength going into the swing of his 'space-hatchet.' The monster did not dodge, but merely threw up a hand to flick the toy aside with his gun-barrel. Cloud grinned fleetingly as he realized what the other must be thinking-that the man must be puny indeed to be making such ado about wielding such a trifle-for to anyone not familiar with dureum it is sheerly unbelievable that so much mass and momentum can possibly reside in a bulk so small.
Thus when fiercely-driven cutting edge met opposing ray-gun it did not waver or deflect. It scarcely even slowed. Through the metal of the gun that vicious blade sliced resistlessly, shearing flesh as it sped. On down, urged by everything Cloud's straining muscles could deliver. Through armor it slashed, through the bony plating covering that tremendous double shoulder, deep into the flesh and bone of the shoulder itself; being stopped only by the impact of the hatchet's haft against the armor.
Then, planting one steel boot on the helmet's dome, he got a momentary stance with the other between barrel body and flailing arm, bent his back, and heaved. The deeply embedded blade tore out through bone and flesh and metal, and as it did so the two rear cabled arms dropped useless. That mighty rear shoulder and its appurtenances were out of action. The monster still had one good hand, however, and he was still full of fight.
That hand flashed out, to seize the weapon and to wield it against its owner. It came fast, too, but the man, strongly braced, yanked backward. Needle point and keen edge tore through flesh and snicked off fingers. Cloud swung his axe aloft and poised, making it limpidly clear that the next blow would be straight down into the top t>f the head.