"Tama Princes of Mercury" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weis Margaret)

A NIGHT OF HORROR
J.HE NEWSCASTER'S VOICE came blaring from the
sound-grid:
"And we have upon good authority the information that
the Bolton Flying Cube is almost ready for another trial
flight. Dr. Norton Grenfell, when interviewed yesterday,
was evasive regarding his plans. But from other sources we
learn that at the next Inferior Conjunction of Mercury and
Earthwhich occurs in about two weeks now, at which
time the two planets will again be at their closest points to
each otherwe are informed that this new concept in inter-
planetary travelthe Flying Cube, will endeavor to reach
Mercury"
"Well!" exclaimed Rowena. "They think they know a lot,
don't they?"
"Hear him out," I said.
The voice went on: "There is undoubtedly no further men-
ace from Mercury. The marauders from last fall will not come
again. Jack Dean and his wife, Rowena Palisse, will of course
be upon the Flying Cube when it makes its adventurous
flight. Dean and his wife and Guy Palisse and the strange
girl named Tama, and her brother Toh, who came last fall
from Mercury, are still in seclusion. We have as yet been un-
able-"
"To locate us," Guy said with a grin. "This fellow has a
lordly manner, hasn't he?"
I am the Jack Dean whom the newscaster mentioned. This
was in March; in August of the previous year the world was
startled by an attack of Mercurian invaders upon a girls'
summer camp in Maine. Some of the girls were abducted
vanished in the night. I met Rowena Palisse then.
She's a very tall girl, with the regal aspect of a Nordic
queen. I myself am several inches over six feet. I think our
abnormal statures first attracted us to each other.
Rowena's brother, Guy, had tried to get to the Moon ten
years ago, an abortive attempt in a moon rocket. He left
the Earth, and was not heard from again. It was to Mer-
cury the rocket carried him. He lived there all those ten
yearsand last August he came back, a captive with the
Mercurian invaders.
How the ship of these invaders was destroyed in outer
space some three hundred thousand miles from the Earth;
how the giant Mercurian Croat was killed; and Guy, the
Mercurian girl Tama, and her brother Toh were rescued by
the Bolton Flying Cubeall this was public news.
And now Rowena and I were married and, with Guy and
Tama and Toh, were trying to live in seclusion from the
prying newscasters. The affair was over. Croat was dead.
The only spaceship existing on Mercury had been destroyed.