"Campbell, John W Jr - The Brain Pirates" - читать интересную книгу автора (Campbell John W Jr)

a huge, rugged boulder that looked strangely like a lop-eared krull with an ugly, grinning face.
"Krull Rock," explained Drunath. "Always search it first for anything smaller than an automobile. If there aren't any krull there, there aren't any in town."
Blake looked up. Black rock, jumbled boulders, and creeping vines. Bright metal testified to a complete ring of steel traps, all unoccupied. Penton was working with his flash, adjusting the tiny atomic generator it contained to maximum power. Then he pressed the little button.
A low hum came from the instrument, then a shaft of light unbearable, corruscating brilliance. It shimmered from the black rocks in a scintillating, twinkling rain-and vanished as Penton released the flash. Slowly, Blake's eyes adjusted themselves. Then again the flash, and again, till it was on full, and Blake's eyes had readjusted to its light.
Penton was chuckling softly. The air was full of soft whimpers, and little screeches. They turned to howls of dismay as Penton and Blake, unsteady for laughter, picked off dozens of the crazy-quilt krull. Their UV pistols working methodically, they cleaned out the entire colony of the beasts perched on the rock.
Slowly, unsteadily, Terruns and Drunath were firing.
"Curse all Gods, destroy all devils, and particular maledictions of krull," Drunath exclaimed. "Your goggles are inadequate. I can hardly see through them. For the first time in my life I can dimly see a colony, a whole troop of krull, and I cannot shoot straight!" Drunath threw down his weapon in disgust. "Can you," asked Blake, "see what is on top of that blasted rock?"
"Fire. It looks like fire to us."
"Not fire. Metal. A whole metal ship. Your idiotic krull didn't carry it two hundred yards, but just up above where your search methods weren't worth a damn. We will move it."
"You are leaving?" asked Terruns sadly.
"Not," Penton'assured him, "by six planets and a dozen moons. We're staying for the shooting. And, oh, my friends,
they could not return, so for nearly four and a half of yov years they remained there, working, working to repair their ship.
"They have done it at last. And they have returned. And best of all, after a four-year stay there, they know all thef need know about that system of eleven' planets. It is com-pact as yours, with an ultra-light sun such as yours, and fo"" of the planets are habitable. Together we can colonize that system! It is a system of stable heat and stable light. And ' it is small, yet large enough. And with the devices such as your new energy has permitted, we need never fear the stony meteors again." Gresth Gkae smiled happily. "Still better-it is inhabited only by the lowest forms of We. It is too costly to both races when Jarth sees fit to stimulate them bv throwing one against the other, despite the good things that may come later."