"Donald E. Wollheim - The Secret of the ninth Planet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wollheim Donald A)

aboard. But, gee, you mean go back-- where?"
Saunders smiled grimly. "To California. We just left there. I have been given
urgent orders to waste no time. So will you oblige?"
The two Dennings looked at each other. This was important, all right. They
realized that these planes had flown on fast rockets the instant the sky had
cleared. Possibly there was still a crisis-- one they had not heard of.
They did not pause to ask further questions. Mark Denning asked the captain to
dispatch one of his 'copters to the camp beyond the mountains to tell Gonzales
to load up and start back for Lima. This order given, the two Dennings climbed
into the rocket 'copter, and Saunders took the controls.
With a whoosh, the squat craft lifted on its rockets, its jet-driven fan carried
it up, folded, and the rocket engine took over. On upward into the stratosphere
they hurtled, across the Western Hemisphere, across the face of jungle and
isthmus, across the barren mountains of Mexico, and in a matter of less than
half an hour, settled down in the wide open field of a U.S. Air Force base in
southern California. It was all so swift, so sudden, that to Burl it seemed like
a dream. There had been so many days in the field, in the peace and quiet of the
high mountains of the Andes. There had been the slow hunting around age-worn
ruins; the careful, deliberate sifting of tons of soil and sand for tiny shards;
then this-- the urgent message, the trek, the weird building, the strange,
body-filling shock, and the control over the Sun-theft globes, followed by the
swift transition over thousands of miles.
Here he was in his home country-- weeks sooner than he had expected-- but not to
return to his home and school. No, for he felt that somehow an adventure was
beginning that could lead anywhere. Perhaps his adventure had actually ended,
but he saw now that he would be questioned, probed, and asked to recount his
story over and over.
Burl and his father were met at the port by a group of officers and escorted
rapidly to a room in a large building. Here there were half a dozen men in
civilian clothes. One by one, these men were introduced, and as each one was
named, Burl wondered more about what was to come.
There was a general from Army Intelligence. There was a high member of the State
Department. There were three noted astronomers-- among them the surprisingly
young Russell Clyde and the elderly and famous Dr. Merckmann. There was an
aircraft manufacturer whose name graced a thousand planes, and an engineer who
had contributed to the conquest of the Moon.
The general, Walton Shrove, asked them to sit down. He was in charge of the
affair. It turned out to be a careful questioning of their story. It was not a
hounding of questions as in a police quizzing, or a baiting from newspapermen
eager to get a scoop. Rather, their questions were deliberate and intelligent.
They drew out the full account of what Burl and his father had seen in that


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valley, and of what the Sun-theft globes appeared to be like in operation. They
concentrated deeply on the curious experience which had placed in Burl the
charge that enabled him to control the machines.
"Would you mind," the general asked Burl, "if we subject you to a series of