"Stanley G. Weinbaum - Smothered Seas" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weinbaum Stanley G)

by Ralph Milne Farley and Stanley G. Weinbaum
The seas crept with green. It crawled up the shores and smothered the hills!

IT was the year 2000. America was at war, fighting for her very life against the Asiatic Union. And
yet the American peopleтАФeven army offi-cersтАФfound time for recreation. Rec-reation was a necessity,
to take one's mind off the titanic struggle.
Lieutenant Richard Lister, clad in swimming trunks, sat on a beach rug, staring moodily out across the
Pacific Ocean toward the Seal Rocks and be-yond, his hands clasped across his tanned knees, his
bronzed face tense.
"Let's not talk about the war; let's talk about us!" he exclaimed to Sally Amber, who sat beside him.
The girl turned her strange, dark eyes inquisitively upon him.
"You shouldn't feel that way, Dick," she said seriously. "Particularly as you're in such an important
branch of the service. I'm not kidding; I mean it. Where would the country be with-out your Bureau of
Military Biology and Bacteriology? We'd all be wiped out by the Asiatic Union's germs!"
"Sure. And if it weren't for their bacteriologists, they'd be wiped out by our germs. It's a deadlock, I
tell you, like this whole war. Look at Alaska: For more than a year now the Khan has been holding that
little corner from Rocky Point to Cape Espenberg, and we haven't been able to budge his line a single
inch, nor has he been able to budge ours. Each army is protected by one of those impenetrable
Beckerley electrical fields.
"Alaska is the key to the whole situa-tion, with the Khan there in person. If we could just get through
his Beckerley field, and put an end to him, the whole Asiatic Union would crumble. It's only his
personality that can hold together such naturally hostile groups as the Siberian Russians, the Japs, the
Chinese, the Tartars, and so forth. Without him, they'd be at each other's throats in a few hours!"
"Well, why doesn't somebody do something about it?" asked Sally, imp-ishly.
"Lord knows we've tried!" Lister ex-claimed. "Ten or a dozen brave Ameri-cans have gotten through
the enemy lines, and tried to assassinate him, only to be captured, and subjected to hor-rible torture and
death."
The girl shuddered, and pulled one corner of the beach rug up around her shoulders.
"I don't suppose I'd rate as a 'brave American,' " she said.
"I'd take a chance on your bravery," Lister declared.
"Why doesn't America land troops in Asia?" Sally asked.
Lister stared at her sharply.
"You know as well as I do," he said. "Although America controls the seas ever since we annihilated
the Khan's fleet off the Marianas six months ago, yet he has ten million men under arms in Asia. What
good would it do us to land our five million against such odds? No, we've got to lick the mad Khan in
AlaskaтАФsomehow."
"He isn't mad!" snapped Sally, un-expectedly.
"How do you know?"
"I'veтАФI'veтАФwell, I've seen him."
"I didn't know you'd ever been in Asia."
"There are lots of things about me that you don't know," she retorted. "My father is dead, and I am
quite wealthy. I've traveled a lot. Three years ago I was in the eastern cap-italтАФHarbin; and, what's
more, I've been in Moscow, the western capital, too."
"So you've seen the mad Khan," mused Lister. "Did you ever see the woman they call Princess
Stephanie? What's she like? She's supposed to be very beautiful."
Sally shrugged. "Oh, she's all right, if you like that type," she replied airily. "She's dark and has
Khazar blood in her, and she's about my ageтАФand any-way, why are you questioning me? Go on with
your little lecture."
 "About us?" he asked hopefully.
"No." She reached out one slim hand, and gently patted his knee. "About the Beckerley electrical