"Smith, E E 'Doc' - Lensman 07 - Masters Of The Vortex" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

There was a long pause.
'Well, spill it!' Number One barked. 'What did he say?'
'Shall I give it to you straight boss, or maybe I better tone it down some?'
'Straight!'
'He said for you to go roast, for fourteen thousand years, in the hottest corner you can find of the hottest hell of Telemachia, and take your Srizonified association with you. Take your membership papers and stick 'em. Blow his place up and be damned to you, he says. If you kill him in the blast he's left stuff in a deposit box that'll blow all the Srizonified crooked politicians and lawmen in the Fourth Continent off their perches and down onto their Srizonified butts. An' if you don't get him, he says, he'll come after you with blasters in both hands. Make it plain, he says, that it's you he'll be after-not me. That's exactly what he told me to tell you, boss.'
'Me? ME?' Number One demanded. The towering rage, which he had been scarcely able to control, subsided into a warily intense speculation. 'How did he find out about me? Somebody'11 burn for this!'
'I dunno, boss, but it looks like you said a mouthful about having to do something about him. We got to make an example of somebody, boss-or else-in my book it'd better be 92. He's organizing, sure as hell, and if we don't knock him off it'll spread fast.'
'Hm ... m ... m. Yes, but just him personally, not his place. I'm not afraid of any evidence he can leave, of itself, but in connection with the other thing it might be bad. His place is too big; too centrally located. No matter what time of night it goes off it'll kill too many people and do too much damage. Yellow Castle might dump us instead of trying to ride out such a storm.' 'Yeah, they might, at that. Prob'ly would. And the do-gooders might get some of them Srizonified Lensmen in here besides. But an ordinary bomb would do the job.'
85
'No. Got to be a vortex. We promised 'em an atomic flare, so that's what it's got to be. It doesn't have to be 92, though. We can get away easy enough with killing a few people, so I'd say somebody in the outskirts-53 would be as good as any. So tell 53 his place gets it at midnight tomorrow night, and the fewer people in it the more will stay alive.'
'Check. And I'll take care of 92?'
'Of course. You don't have to be told every move to make.'
'Just wanted to make sure, is all. What do I do in the big fireworks?' It was clear that the underling was intensely curious about the phenomenon, but his curiosity was not to be satisfied.
'Nothing,' his chief informed him flatly. 'That isn't your dish. Now we'll eat.'
Number One stopped talking, but he did not stop thinking; and Nadine could read, and Vesta could transcribe, thoughts as well as words.
'Besides, it's about time for 31 to earn some of the credits we're paying him,' was the grimly savage thought.
This thought was accompanied by a picture, which Nadine spread in full in Cloud's mind. A tall, lean, gray Tellurian was aiming a mechanism-the details of which were so vague that it could have been anything from a vest-pocket flash-pencil up to a half-track mobile projector-at a power-plant, which immediately and enthusiastically went out of control in a blind-ingly incandescent flare of raw energy.
Fairchild!
Cloud's mind raced. That vortex on Deka hadn't been accidental, then, even though there had been no evidence-no suspicion-even the Lensmen hadn't guessed that the radiation-ist had been anything other than a very minor cog in Graves' thionite-producing machine! Nobody except Fairchild knew what he did or how he did it-the mob must have tried to find out, too, but he wouldn't give-but this stuff was very definitely for the future; not for now.
'QX, girls. A nice job-thanks,' he said. 'Now Vesta, please tape the actual facts and the actual words of the interview- none of the pictures or guesses-in Middle Plateau Tomingan. Wherever possible, bracket real names and addresses with the code numbers. Tommie and Jim can help you on that.'
She did so.
When the came to that part of the transcription dealing with
86
Number Ninety Two, Jim stiffened and swelled with rage.
'Ask him if that's an accurate report,' Cloud directed.
'It's accurate enough as far as it goes,' Jim boomed. His voice, deeper and louder than Tommie's, and not nearly as musical, almost shook the walls. 'But he left out half of it. What I really told him would have burned all the tape off that recorder.'
'But they left in that ... that awful one, three times.' Tommie, tough as she was, was shocked. 'You ought to be ashamed of yourself.'
'Srizonified?' Cloud whispered to Vesta. 'It sounded bad, but not that hot. It it?'
'Yes, the hottest in the language. I never saw it in print, and heard it only once, and that was by accident. Like most such things, though, it doesn't translate-"descended from countless generations of dwellers in stinking, unflowering mud" is as close as I can come to it in Spanish.'
'QX. Finish up the tape and make two copies of it.'
When the copies were ready Cloud handed them to Tommie.
'Tell him to take one of these down to the Tomingan equivalent of the D.A.'s office the first thing in the morning,' he instructed Vesta. 'The other ought to go to a big law firm-an honest one, if she knows of any. Now ask Jim what he thinks he's going to do.'
'I'm going to get a pair of blasters and ...'
'Yeah?' Cloud's biting monosyllable, so ably translated by the Vegian, stopped him in mid-sentence. 'What chance do you thing you stand of getting home tonight in one piece? Your copter is probably mined right now, and they've undoubtedly made arrangements to blast you if you leave here any other way, even on foot. If you want to stay alive, though, I've got a suggestion to make.'
'You may be right, sir.' Jim's bluster died away as he began really to think. 'Do you see a way out?'
'Yes. Ordinary citizens don't wear armor here, any more than anywhere else, so ordinary gangsters don't use semi-portables. So, when you leave here, go to Tommie's room instead of out. They'll lay for you, of course, but while they're waiting Tommie will go to our ship and bring back my G-P armor. You put it on, walk out openly and take a ground-car-not a copter-to the ship. If they know armor they won't shoot at you, because you could shoot back. When you get to the ship go in, lock the port
87
behind you, and stay there until I tell you to come out.'
Jim, influenced visibly by the pleasant possibility of shooting back, accepted the plan joyously; and, after making sure that there were no spies or spy-rays on watch, the two Tomingans left the room.
A few minutes later, with the same precaution, Vesta and the Manarkan went to their own rooms; but they were on hand again after breakfast next morning.
'You know, of course, that you have no evidence admissible in even an honest court,' Nadine began. 'You knew it when you changed your mind about having a Tomingan voice, not Vesta's, on those tapes.'
'Yes. Communicator-taps are out-violation of privacy.'
'Exactly. And telepathy is worse. Any attempt to introduce telepathic testimony, on almost any non-telephathic world, does more harm than good. So, beyond establishing the fact of guilt in your own mind-a fact already self-evident, since such outrages can happen only when both courts and police are corrupt from top to bottom-I fail to see what you hope to gain.'
'Wouldn't a Tomingan Lensman be interested?'
'There are none. There never have been any.'
'Well, then, I'll take it up myself, with..."
Cloud stopped in mid-thought. With whom? He could talk to Phil Strong, certainly, but he wouldn't get anywhere. He knew, as well as Nadine did, that the Galactic Patrol would not interfere with purely local politics unless something of inter-systemic scope was involved. The Galactic Council held, and probably rightly, that any people got the kind of local government they deserved. He certainly couldn't expect the Patrol to over-ride planetary sovereignty in regard to a thing that hadn't happened yet! ! He wrenched his mind away.
'Having any trouble following her, Nadine?' he asked.
'No. She's just leaving the fast-way now; going into his office.'
Thus, through Nadine, Cloud accompanied Tommie into the office of the District Attorney, saw her tender the spool of tape, heard her explain in stormy language what it was.