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

fields. What are they? How do they operate?"

HE FROWNED thoughtfully, try-ing to phrase his answer in words that a girl would understand.
"It's an application of Morelle's ex-periment with electrical eddy currents," he said. I'm a botanist, not
an elec-trical engineer, but I know that the idea involves the refraction of lines of mag-netic force.
"It works like this: Over each army on the Alaskan front the scientists have created a dome of
electrical tensionтАФ a magnetic field. Any shell or drop bomb passing through this magnetic field is
instantly heated to white heat by the electrical eddy currents induced in it by the field, and is thus caused
to explode in mid-air.
"Every city is likewise protected by a Beckerley field. You know how each auto-copter, on leaving
the city limits of San Francisco, has to stop and be pushed through an iron-shielded subway until it's
beyond the Beckerley field? Well, that's because the gasoline in the tank would be heated to the flash
point by the walls of its container."
"How about solid shot?" asked Sally.
"That can pass through a field, of course, but what chance has solid shot of doing much damage? Our
own cop-ters could down any possible fleet of enemy planes long before they could drop enough solid
missiles to do appre-ciable harm to a city; and as for the Alaskan front, the most that either side could do
would be to chip a few rocks in the Yukon Hills.
"No, the situation's a deadlock; the Khan is swept from the sea, but his enormous army prevents our
invading Asia, and neither side can advance an inch in Alaska because of the Becker-ley fields. It can't
even become a war of attrition, because both the Asiatic Union and the United States are en-tirely
self-supporting, and can never be starved into submission."
"Do you think so?" asked Sally Am-ber in an odd voice. Suddenly she shrugged her smooth, brown
shoulders as if to change the subject. "Will Ad-miral Allen be here Saturday?" she asked casually.
"Why, no, I don't thinkтАФ" Lister caught himself abruptly. Allen had told him, in the very strictest of
confidence, of a proposed attempt to cut the Asiatic supply line to Alaska by a concentrated attack on
Behring Strait, The Pacific fleet, idle since the engagement near the Marianas, was to sail secretly before
dawn on Saturday.
He glared. "Why do you ask such a question?" he snapped. "If I knew, I shouldn't tell, and you know
it."
Sally laughed. "Silly!" she chided. "It was just that I was considering hav-ing him and you and that
flying detec-tive, Jim Cass, to a little dinner at my apartment Saturday. You see, I still haven't met Jim
Cass, and you've spoken of him so often that I'm curious. After all, if he's a friend of yours, DickтАФ"
She smiled very tenderly at him.
Lister shook his head. "Captain Cass is no friend of mine," he declared. "He's just an officer of the
military intelligence who breezes into my labora-tory from time to time, and pokes around looking for
clues and trouble. He gives me the creeps. I never knew such a cold-blooded man! He'd turn his own
mother over to a firing squad, if he thought it would help win the war."
"Well, wouldn't you or I do as much for our country?" asked Sally. "And, besides, his very coldness
intrigues me. I want to meet him."
"Suit yourself," said Lister. "Have we time for another swim?"
She puckered her lips disapprovingly. "Oh, no!' she exclaimed decidedly. "The water's so full of that
horrible green slime that it's no pleasure to swim. Let's start back to town."
"It is bad," he agreed. "It's just a variety of confervaeтАФwhat we com-monly call algae. There have
been some complaints of it in the drinking water, too. It's harmless, but they ought to chlorinate the city
reservoir." He rose and stretched. "Let's dress and get started, then."
It was not quite 2:00 p. m. when they landed Sally's convertible helicop-ter in front of the building
near the Presidio that served as the office and laboratory of the local unit of the Bu-reau of Military
Biology and Bacteri-ology. Lister stepped reluctantly out of the machine, and turned to Sally at the
wheel.