"Lensman 07 - Masters of the Vortex (The Vortex Blaster)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)
'Exactly-enough of them to straighten out our books. Then, later, we can dispose of undesirables as they appear. Vortices are absolutely unpredictable, you know. People can die of radiation or of any one of a mixture of various toxic gases and the vortex will take the blame.'
'And later on, when it gets dangerous, Storm Cloud can blow it out for us,' Graves gloated. 'But we won't want him for a long, long time!'
'No, but we'll report it and ask for him the hour it happens ... use your head, Graves!' He silenced the manager's anguished howl of protest. 'Anybody who gets one wants it killed as soon as possible, but here's the joker. Cloud has enough Class-A-double-prime-urgent demands on file already to keep him busy from now on, so we won't be able to get him for a long, long time. See?'
'I see. Nice, Doc. ... very, very nice. But I'll have the boys keep an eye on Cloud just the same.'
At about this same time two minor cogs of TPI's vast machine sat blissfully, arms around each other, on a rustic seat improvised from rocks, branches, and leaves. Below them, almost under their feet, was a den of highly venomous snakes, but neither man or girl saw them. Before them, also unperceived, was a magnificent view of valley and stream and mountain.
All they saw, however, was each other-until their attention was wrenched to a man who was climbing toward them with the aid of a thick club which he used as a staff.
'Oh ... Bob!' The girl stared briefly; then, with a half-articulate moan, shrank even closer against her lover's side.
Ryder, left arm tightening around the girl's waist, felt with his right hand for a club of his own and tensed his muscles, for
the climbing man was completely mad.
His breathing was ... horrible. Mouth tight-clamped, despite his terrific exertion, he was sniffing-sniffing loathsomely, lustfully, each whistling inhalation filling his lungs to bursting. He exhaled explosively, as though begrudging the second of time required to empty himself of air. Wide-open eyes glaring fixedly ahead he blundered upward, paying no attention whatever to his path. He tore through clumps of thorny growth; he stumbled and fell over logs and stones; he caromed away from boulders; as careless of the needles which tore clothing and skin as of the rocks which bruised his flesh to the bone. He struck a great tree and bounced; felt his frenzied way around the obstacle and back into his original line.
He struck the gate of the pen immediately beneath the two appalled watchers and stopped. He moved to the right and paused, whimpering in anxious agony. Back to the gate and over to the left, where he stopped and howled. Whatever the frightful compulsion was, whatever he sought, he could not deviate enough from his line to go around the pen. He looked, then, and for the first time saw the gate and the fence and the ophidian inhabitants of the den. They did not matter. Nothing mattered. He fumbled at the lock, then furiously attacked it and the gate and the fence with his club-fruitlessly. He tried to climb the fence, but failed. He tore off his shoes and socks and, by dint of jamming toes and ringers ruthlessly into the meshes, he began to climb.
No more than he had minded the thorns and the rocks did he mind the eight strands of viciously-barbed wire surmounting that fence; he did not wince as the inch-long steel fangs bit into arms and legs and body. He did, however, watch the snakes. He took pains to drop into an area temporarily clear of them, and he pounded to death the half-dozen serpents bold enough to bar his path.
Then, dropping to the ground, he writhed and scuttled about; sniffing ever harder; nose plowing the ground. He halted; dug his bleeding fingers into the hard soil; thrust his nose into the hole; inhaled tremendously. His body writhed, trembled, shuddered uncontrollably, then stiffened convulsively into a supremely ecstatic rigidity utterly horrible to see.
The terribly labored breathing ceased. The body collapsed bonelessly, even before the snakes crawled up and struck and
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struck and struck.
Jacqueline Comstock saw very little erf the outrageous performance. She screamed once, shut both eyes, and, twisting about within the man's encircling arm, burrowed her face into his left shoulder.
Ryder, however-white-faced, set-jawed, sweating-watched the thing to its ghastly end. When it was over he licked his lips and swallowed twice before he could speak.
'It's all over now dear-no danger now,' he managed finally to say. 'We'd better go. We ought to turn in an alarm ,.. make a report or something."
'Oh, I can't, Bob-I can't!' she sobbed. 'If I open my eyes, I just know I'll look, and if I look I'll ... I'll simply turn inside out!'
'Hold everything, Jackie! Keep your eyes shut. I'll pilot you and tell you when we're out of sight.'
More than half carrying his companion, Ryder set off down the rocky trail. Out of sight of what had happened, the girl opened her eyes and they continued their descent in a more usual, more decorous fashion until they met a man hurrying upward.
'Oh, Dr. Fairchild! There was a ...' But the report which Ryder was about to make was unnecessary; the alarm had already been given.
Fairchild returned after a time, unhurried and completely at ease. He did not ask the shaken couple if they had seen what had happened. He knew.
'Bu ... buh... but, doctor,' Ryder began. 'Keep still-don't talk at all.' Fairchild ordered, bruskly. Then, in an ordinary conversational tone, he went on: 'Until we have investigated this extraordinary occurrence thoroughly- sifted it to the bottom-the possibility of sabotage and spying cannot be disregarded. As the only eye-witnesses, your reports will be exceedingly valuable; but you must not say a word until we are in a place which / know is proof against any and all spy-rays. Do you understand?" 'Oh! Yes, we understand.'
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'Pull yourselves together, then. Act unconcerned, casual; particularly when we get to the Administration Building. Talk about the weather-or, better yet, about the honeymoon you are going to take on Chickladoria.'
Thus there was nothing visibly unusual about the group of three which strolled into the building and into Graves' private office. The fat man raised an eyebrow.
'I'm taking them to the private laboratory,' Fairchild said, as he touched the yellow button and led the two toward the private elevator. 'Frankly, young folks, I am a scared-yes, a badly scared man."
This statement, so true and yet so misleading, resolved the young couple's inchoate doubts. Entirely unsuspectingly, they followed the Senior Radiationist into the elevator and, after it had stopped, along a corridor. They paused as he unlocked and opened a door; they stepped unquestioningly into the room at his gesture. He did not, however, follow them in. Instead, the heavy metal slab slammed shut, cutting off Jackie's piercing shriek of fear.
'You might as well cut out the racket,' came from a speaker in the steel ceiling of the room. 'Nobody can hear you but me."
'But Mr. Graves, I thought ... Dr. Fairchild told us ... we were going to tell him about...'
'You're going to tell nobody nothing. You saw too much and know too much, that's all.'
'Oh, that's it!' Ryder's mind reeled as some part of the actual significance of what he had seen struck home. 'But listen! Jackie didn't see anything-she had her eyes shut all the time -and doesn't know anything. You don't want to have the murder of such a girl as she is on your mind, I know. Let her go and she'll never say a word-we'll both swear to it-or you could...'
'Why? Just because she's got a face and a shape?' The fat man sneered. 'No soap, Junior. She's not that much of a ...' He broke off as Fairchild entered his office.
'Well, how about it? How bad is it?' Graves demanded.
'Not bad at all. Everything's under control.'
'Listen, doctor!' Ryder pleaded. 'Surely you don't want to murder Jackie here in cold blood? I was just suggesting to Graves that he could get a therapist...'
'Save your breath,' Fairchild ordered. 'We have important
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things to think about. You two die.'
'But why?' Ryder cried. He could as yet perceive only a fraction of the tremendous truth. 'I tell you, it's ...'
'We'll let you guess," said Fairchild.
Shock upon shock had been too much for the girl's overstrained nerves. She fainted quietly and Ryder eased her down to the cold steel floor.
'Can't you give her a better cell than this?' he protested then. 'There's no ... it isn't decent!'
'You'll find food and water, and that's enough.' Graves laughed coarsely. 'You won't live long, so don't worry about conveniences. But keep still. If you want to know what's going on, you can listen, but one more word out of you and I cut the circuit. Go ahead, Doc, with what you were going to say.'
'There was a fault in the rock. Very small, but a little of the finest smoke seeped through. Barney must have been a sniffer before to be able to smell the trace of the stuff that was drifting down the hill. I'm having the whole cave tested with a leak-detector and sealed bottle-tight. The record can stand it that Barney-he was a snake-tender, you know-died of snake-bite. That's almost the truth, too, by the way.'
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