"Theodore Sturgeon - The Sky Was Full of Ships" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sturgeon Theodore)

THE SKY WAS FULL OF SHIPS
By THEODORE STURGEON

They tried Gordon Kent for murderтАФbut it was impossible to find
those who were really responsible for the curious crime!

SYKES died, and after two years they tracked Gordon Kemp down and brought him back, because
he was the only man who knew anything about the death. Kemp had to face a coroner's jury in
Switchpath, Arizona, a crossroads just at the edge of the desert, and he wasn't too happy about it, being
city-bred and not quite understanding the difference between "hicks" and "folks."
The atmosphere in the courtroom was tense. Had there been great wainscoted walls and a statue of
blind Justice, it would have been more impersonal and, for Kemp, easier to take. But this courtroom was
a crossroads granger's hall in Switchpath, Arizona.
The presiding coroner was Bert Whelson, who held a corncob pipe instead of a gavel. At their ease
around the room were other men, dirt-farmers and prospectors like Whelson. It was like a movie short.
It needed only a comedy dance number and somebody playing a jug.
But there was nothing comic about it.
These hicks were in a position to pile trouble on Kemp, trouble that might very easily wind up in the
gas chamber.
The coroner leaned forward. "You got nothin' to be afeard of, son, if your conscience is clear."
"I still ain't talking. I brought the guy in, didn't I? Would I of done that if I'd killed him?"
The coroner stroked his stubble, a soft rasping sound like a rope being pulled over a wooden beam.
"We don't know about that, Kemp. Hmm. Why can't you get it through your head that nobody's
accusing you of anything? You're jest a feller knows something about the death of this here Alessandro
Sykes. This court'd like to know exactly what happened."
He hesitated, shuffled.
"Sit down, son," said the coroner.
That did it. He slumped into the straight chair that one of the men pushed up for him, and told this
story.

***

I guess I better go right back to the beginning, the first time I ever saw this here Sykes.
I was working in my shop one afternoon when he walked in. He watched what I was doing and
spoke up.
"You Gordon Kemp?"
I said yes and looked him over. He was a scrawny feller, prob'ly sixty years old and wound up real
tight. He talked fast, smoked fast, moved fast, as if there wasn't time for nothin', but he had to get on to
somethin' else. I asked him what he wanted.
"You the man had that article in the magazine about the concentrated atomic torch?" he said.
"Yeah," I told him. "Only that guy from the magazine, he used an awful lot of loose talk. Says my
torch was three hundred years ahead of its time." Actually it was something I stumbled on by accident,
more or less. The ordinary atomic hydrogen torchтАФplenty hot.
I figured out a ring-shaped electro-magnet set just in front of the jet, to concentrate it. It repelled the
hydrogen particles and concentrated them. It'll cut anythingтАФanything. And since it got patented, you'd
be surprised at the calls I got. You got no idea how many people want to cut into bank vaults an' the side
doors of hock shops. Well, about Sykes. . . .
I told him this magazine article went a little too far, but I did have quite a gadget.
 I give him a demonstration or two, and he seemed satisfied. Finally I told him I was wasting my time
unless he had a proposition.