"Smith, E E 'Doc' - Subspace 02 - Subspace Encounters" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

devastation, reducing the great starship to a fused hulk of destructively radioactive metal.
Its cause? There was nothing whatever to indicate the source, no follow-up attack; and
for almost all aboard the Procyon it was instant death. Like all starship disasters, there
was no time for any report to be made.

The four-Carlyle Deston, Barbara Warner Deston, Theodore Jones. and Bernice Burns
Jones-being highly psychic, had enough warning of catastrophe so that each couple
reached a lifeboat. The Destons found already in their lifeboat, studying subspace, one
Doctor Andrew Adams, a Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study. These five were the
only survivors of the disaster to get back to civilization.

Decontamination-thorough but most unpleasant-followed; as soon as it was safe to do
so, they reboarded the hulk, finding all subspace gear inoperable. Most normal-space
equipment, however, would work-after a fashion. It would take a year or more to reach
the nearest solar system, but they had plenty of power, air, water, and food.

Shortly after the shipwreck, both girls became pregnant; and long before the year was
up, it became evident that both periods of gestation wore going to be extraordinarily
long. This gave super-mathematician Adams new data with which to work, and he proved
that time was not an absolute constant, but could, under certain conditions, become a
parameter. (Cf The Adams Theory and The Adams Effect.) He deduced, (1) that the
Procyon had struck a field of subspatial force that he called the "zeta" field; (2) that the
entire mass of the ship and all its contents were charged to an extremely high potential
with a force more or less analogous to that which produces lightning; (3) that the ships
which had disappeared had been completely destroyed by the discharge of zeta force to
a planet upon approach; and (4) that extreme precautions had to be observed if they
themselves were not to be destroyed in the same way.

In due time-or rather, about five months after due time two babies were born. Theodore
Warner Deston and Barbara Bernice Jones.

A barren planet was found and plans were made to rid the Procyon of zeta force.
Extreme caution was observed. The force was discharged in successive decrements by
means of twenty-five-mile lengths of ultra-high-tensile wire. With all potentials at the zero
of normal space, the subspace communicators were again in working order and Deston
reported in. It was of course a simple matter for the subspace-going machine shops to
jury-rig enough subspace gear for the Procyon to get back to her home port under her
own power.

Both Deston and Jones were promoted on the spot; but, since both were now married,
neither could serve InStell (The Interstellar Corporation) in either subspace or space.
Captain Theodore Jones went back to Earth-Bernice was not very rich-to work in the
main office. Captain Carlyle Deston resigned and went with Barbara to the palatial
Warner home - her home now, since her parents had died in the wreck-on the planet
Newmars. But he was not going to live on his wife's money all the rest of his life.

Barbara knew that Deston had tremendous latent powers, and she helped him develop
them. He became able to do with metals what she had done with oil. He found a
mountain of uranium, which Deston and Deston, Incorporated, sold to Galactic Metals.
He also found copper in quantities which made automation feasible, a discovery which