"Jack Williamson - Hindsight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williamson Jack)

Day after day, the armada dropped Earthward.
The autosight served also as the eyes of the fleet, as well as the fighting brain. In
order to give longer base lines for the automatic triangulations, additional
achronicfield pickups had been installed upon half a dozen ships. Tight achronic
beams brought their data to the immense main instrument, on the Warrior Queen.
The autosight steered every ship, by achronic beam control, and directed the fire of
its guns.
The Warrior Queen led the fleet. The autosight held the other vessels in accurate
line behind her, so that only one circular cross section might be visible to the
telescopes of Earth.
The rebel planet was still twenty million miles ahead, and fifty hours at normal
deceleration, when the autosight discovered the enemy fleet.
Brek Veronar sat at the curving control table.
Behind him, in the dimlit vastness of the armored room, bulked the main
instrument. Banked thousands of greenpainted casesthe intricate cells of the
mechanical brainwhirred with geodesic analyzers and integrators. The achronic field
pickupssense organs of the brainwere housed in insignificant black boxes. And the
web of achronic transmission beamsinstantaneous, ultrashort, nonelectromagnetic
waves of the subelectronic orderthe nerve fibers that joined the busy cellswas quite
invisible.
Before Brek stood the twentyfoot cube of the stereoscreen, through which the
brain communicated its findings. The cube was black, now, with the crystal
blackness of space. Earth, in it, made a long misty crescent of wavering crimson
splendor. The Moon was a smaller scimitar, blue with the dazzle of its artificial
atmosphere.
Brek touched intricate controls. The Moon slipped out of the cube. Earth
grewand turned. So far had the autosight conquered time and space. It showed the
planet's Sunward side.
Earth filled the cube, incredibly real. The vast white disk of one low-pressure
area lay upon the Pacific's glinting blue. Another, blotting out the winter brown of
North America, reached to the bright gray cap of the arctic.
Softly, in the dim room, a gong clanged. Numerals of white fire flickered against
the image in the cube. An arrow of red flame pointed. At its point was a tiny fleck of
black.
The gong throbbed again, and another black mote came up out of the clouds. A
third followed. Presently there were six. Watching, Brek Veronar felt a little stir of
involuntary pride, a dim numbness of regret.
Those six vessels were the mighty children of Tony Grimm and Elora, the
fighting strength of Earth. Brek felt an aching tenseness in his throat, and tears stung
his eyes. It was too bad that they had to be destroyed.
Tony would be aboard one of those ships. Brek wondered how he would look,
after twenty years. Did his freckles still show? Had he grown stout? Did
concentration still plow little furrows between his blue eyes?
Elorawould she be with him? Brek knew she would. His mind saw the Martian
girl, slim and vivid and intense as ever. He tried to thrust away the image. Time must
have changed her. Probably she looked worn from the years of toil and danger; her
dark eyes must have lost their sparkle.
Brek had to forget that those six little blots represented the lives of Tony and
Elora, and the independence of the Earth. They were only six little lumps of matter,
six targets for the autosight.