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

'I got a question to ask, boss,' Thlaskin put in, before Cloud said anything. 'You got a license to be sore as hell, no argument about that, but I ask you-are you sore mostly because we took the stuff or because we didn't let you in on it? We couldn't do that, boss, and you know why.'
Cloud did know why. The pilot had put his finger right on the sore spot, and the Blaster was honest enough to admit it.
'That's it, I guess.' He grinned wryly.
Tommie, who had been whispering to Vesta, asked: 'You got back here while we were still sucking juice, didn't you?'
'Yes, and as Nadine will undoubtedly point out if I don't, that fact makes me an accomplice for not pulling the switches on you. So, already being an accessory during and after the fact, I may as well go the route. If any of us gets hauled up, we all do.'
'No fear of that,' Tommie assured him. 'One thing Tomin-gans are good at is keeping their mouths shut. Maluleme and Vesta will spill everything they know, and brag about it sooner or later,' The Vegian did not relish translating this passage, but she did so, and accurately, nevertheless, 'but that won't do any harm. It's you that's in the driver's seat. You could've nailed us all to the cross if you liked, and I for one didn't expect to get off easy. Thanks. I'll remember this. So will everybody else who knows. You're washing me out, of course?'
'Not unless you want to stay here on Tominga. You're a good engineer, and I can't picture this as happening again, can you?'
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'Hardly. I like this better than stationary work. Thanks again,, chief. My brother wants to thank you, too.'
After the sincerely grateful and appreciative Tomingan had gone, Cloud said:
'Vesta and Maluleme-if Tommie was right about you two having to talk, make a note of this. Don't do it as long as you're members of this crew. If you do, I'll fire you the second I find out about it. Now everybody-as far as I'm concerned none of this ever happened. We came here to blow out vortices and that's all we did. We'll go back to the hotel, get a few hours sleep and . . .'
The long-range communicator, silent for weeks, came suddenly to life in English.
'Calling space-ship Vortex Blaster One, Commander Neal Cloud. Acknowledge, please. Calling space-ship Vortex Blaster One . . :
'Space-ship Vortex Blaster One acknowledging.' The detector-coupled projector had swung into exact alignment. 'Commander Cloud speaking.'
'Space-ship YB216P9, of First Continent, Tominga, relaying message from Philip Strong of Tellus. Will you accept message?"
'Will accept message. Ready.'
'Begin message. Report in person as soon as convenient. Answer expected. End message. Signed Philip Strong. Repeat, please. We will relay reply.'
Cloud repeated. Then: 'Reply. To Philip Strong, Vortex Control Laboratory, Tellus. Begin message. Remess. Will leave Manarka fourteenth Sol for Tellus. End of message. Signed Neal Cloud. Repeat, please."
That done, he turned to his crew. 'Now we'll have to go to work!'
With Vesta to translate, two days sufficed to rid Tominga of her loose atomic vortices; and no one so much as suspected that the Patrol ship or any of its crew had had anything to do with the upheaval in Mingia.
The trip to Manarka, a two-day flit, was uneventful. So was the extinguishment of Manarka's vortices.
When the job was done, Nadine's mind and Cloud's met briefly. No direct reference was made to the unpleasantness on Tominga, nor to their somewhat variant ideas concerning it. Nadine wanted to stay on. She liked the job and she liked
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Cloud. He was somewhat impractical and visionary, a bit too idealistic in his outlook at times; but a strong and able man and a top-bracket commander, nevertheless.
And the Manarkan, in Cloud's mind, was not only a top-bracket medico, but also a very handy hand to have around.
On the fourteenth of Sol, then, the good ship Vortex Blaster I took off for Tellus, with Cloud wondering more than a little as to what was in the wind. He wasn't the type to be unduly perturbed about being called up on the carpet per se; but Phil didn't go in for mystery much-he explained things ... He couldn't possibly know anything about that Mingian business so soon ... and he was going to tell him all about it anyway ...
There was plenty of Laboratory business that shouldn't be relayed all over space, and this was undoubtedly some of it. Whatever it was, it'd have to keep until he got to Tellus, anyway, so he'd forget it until then.
But he didn't.
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10: Janowick
Back on Tellus, Cloud took a fast copter to the Vortex Control Laboratory, still wondering what it was all about.
'Go right in, Dr Cloud," Strong's secretary told him, even before he stopped at her desk. 'He's been gnawing his nails ever since you landed.'
Cloud went in. The Lensman was not alone; a woman who had been seated beside the desk was now standing, studying him eagerly.
'Hi, Phil,' the Blaster said. 'Why all the haste, and why so cryptic? I've been wondering if you found where I hid the body-and which body it was.'
'Hi, Storm. Nothing like that!' Strong laughed. 'Doctor Janowick, Doctor Cloud-or rather, Joan, this is Storm. You know all about him that anybody does.'
They shook hands, Cloud wondering all the more, and as he wondered he studied the woman, just as she was studying him.
Janowick? Janowick! He'd never heard of any female Janowick, so she couldn't be anybody much in nucleonics. Not exactly fat, but definitely on the plump side. About a hundred and thirty five pounds, he guessed; and about five feet two. About his own age-no, a bit younger, thirty-some, probably. Brown hair, with a few white ones showing; wide-spaced gray eyes-slightly myopic, by the looks of her pixeyish, you-be-damned spectacles. Smart and keen-all in all, a prime number.
'This is why I pulled you in, Storm,' the Lensman went on. 'As you know, we've been combing all Civilization, trying to find somebody-anybody-with enough of the right qualities. She's it. Head of the Department of Semantics at the Galactic Institute for Advanced Study. Doctor of Semantics, Ph.D in cybernetics, D,Sc. in symbolic logic, and so on for half the alphabet. She is also a very good self-made telepath, and the only self-made per-ceiver I ever heard of. She's very good at that, too-she can outrange a Rigellian. And besides all that, she's a Past Grand Master at chess.'
'Past Grand Master? Oh, I see-- I don't suppose it would be quite de rigueur for a top-bracket telepath to win all the Grand Masters' championships. Also, in view of the perception
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business, I imagine all this is more than somewhat hush-hush?'
'Very much so. A few Lensmen and now you are all who are in on it. It'll have to stay top secret until we find out whether an ordinary mind can be developed into one like yours, or whether her brain, like yours, is something out of the ordinary.'
'Yes, it'd be very bad to have billions of people screaming for a treatment that can't be given.'
'Check. But to get back to Joan. She's done some almost unbelievable work and we think she'll do. You know what we're after, of course.'
'All I'm afraid of is that you haven't looked far enough,' the woman said, shaking her head dubiously. 'You know, though, what an appalling job it was bound to be. I'll do whatever I can.'
She did not state the problem, either. They all knew, too well, what it was. As matters then stood, the life of one man- Neal Cloud-was all that stood between Civilization and loose atomic vortices; and it was starkly unthinkable that the Galactic Patrol would leave, for a second longer than was absolutely necessary, that situation unremedied.
'I see.' Cloud broke the short silence. 'Assuming that you haven't been sitting still doing nothing while I've been gone, brief me.'
'Smart boy!' Strong applauded. 'The first thing Joan did was to figure out that a nine-second prediction was out of the question for any computer, digital or analogue, possible to build with today's knowledge. Asked us what we could do to cut the time and how far we could cut it. With your little bombing flitter you have to have about nine seconds because you have to build up your speed to the required initial velocity of the bomb. That could be done away with, of course, by firing the bomb out of a Q-gun or something ..."
'But you'd have to have a special ship, much bigger than a flitter!' Cloud protested. 'And special guns ... and the special pointers for those guns-or for the ship, if the guns were fixed-aligned-would be veree unsimple, believe me!'
'How right you are, Buster! Other things, too, that you haven't thought of yet, such as automatic compensation for air conditions and so on. Very much worth while, however, and all done-we've had a lot of people on this project. But to cut this short, the necessary ship turned out to be a scout cruiser;