"Stanley G. Weinbaum - The Red Peril" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weinbaum Stanley G)

THE RED PERI
THE DUTCH ROCKET AardkinтАФout of Middleburg, passengers and freightтАФdropped gingerly
toward the mist and cloud-girt Earth some twelve thousand miles below, underjets cushioning the fall.
This last leg of the journey from Venus was the ticklish part of the trip; for the great cigar-shaped
rockets, beautifully swift in space, were anything but maneuverable in a strong gravitational field; and
Captain Peter Ten Eyck had no particular desire to descend in either central Europe or mid-Atlantic, to
the resultant disgust of the home office. He wanted to hit Middleburg in Zeeland.
Off to the right appeared a very curious shape, visible no more than a quarter of a mile away through
the bridge room port. "Donder!" said Captain Ten Eyck feelingly.
At the same moment the annunciator beside him remarked, "Cut your jets!"
"Aasvogel!" rejoined the captain. "Vaarken!" His other epithets were somewhat too expressive for
permanent record.
The apparition against the black sky was swiftly drifting closer. It was distinguishable now as a
glittering, metal rocket, but in no way like the tapering, cylindrical Aardkin, nor like any other
rocketтАФsave one.
It was a tubular triangle, from each corner of which rose a strong girder to meet an apex above. In
effect, its sides and girders outlined a skeleton tetrahedron, and from the apex of the girders, the blue
atomic blast flared down to spread fanlike into the space below. As it approached, the strange vessel
was dwarfed by the giant freighter; it was no more than a hundred feet on a side, not an eighth the length
of the Aardkin.
Again the annunciator uttered its metallic tones. It was responding, apparently, to a beam from the
stranger. "Cut your jets!" it repeated. "Cut your jets, or we'll top you!"
Captain Ten Eyck ended his mutterings in a heavy sigh. He had no wish to have his vessel exposed to
the withering blast of the pirate. He grumbled an order into the box beside him, and the roar of the jets
ceased. Whatever maneuverability the lumbering freighter possessed was gone now; there was no longer
any chance of ramming the agile attacker.
With the cessation of the jets came also complete weightlessness, since they were in a free fall; but a
twelve-thousand-mile fall takes considerable time to become serious. Ten Eyck sighed again, ordered the
floor magnets on, and waited phlegmatically for further directions. After all, he reflected, his cargo was
insured, and Boyd's Marine could afford the indemnity. Besides, Boyd's was an English concern, and he
had no mind to risk a good Netherlands ship andтАФif he did say it himselfтАФa good Netherlands captain
to save an English insurance company from loss.
The door to the bridge room opened. Hawkins, the first officer, clattered in. "What's here?" he
shrilled. "The jets are offтАФ" He caught sight of the glistening shape beyond the port. "The Red Peri! The
blasted pirate!"
Captain Ten Eyck said nothing, but his pale blue eyes stared moodily at the painted figure plainly
visible on the attacker's bullтАФthe figure of a crimson winged imp. He needed no sign to identify the
pirate; the queer construction of the vessel was proof enough, for there wasn't another such ship in the
sky.
The voice sounded again. "Open your air lock." Ten Eyck gave the order and stalked grimly out to
receive the boarding party. He heard the thud of the extending gangway as it struck, and the faint grind as
the magnet bit to the freighter's hull. There came a brisk pounding on the inner door of the lock. The
captain gave the order to open, his voice curiously equable. He was thinking again of the insurance
company.
Most of the Aardkin's score of passengers were crowded along the passage. The cutting of the jets,
and perhaps the sound of Hawkins' voice from the beam room as he called hopefully for assistance, had
apprised all of them of the events, and the glittering triangle of the Red Peri indicated their nature.
The lock swung inward, opening upon the steel-ribbed, rubber-sheathed tunnel of the gangway.
Figures in space suits, worn either for disguise or simply as precaution against the possible need of cutting
their way in, filed through the circular doorway, automatics and gas guns menacingly visible.