"Campbell, John W Jr - Who Goes There" - читать интересную книгу автора (Campbell John W Jr)

"I think it's been located," Connant finished. His dark eyes shifted with a queer unease. He darted back to his bunk in Paradise House, to return almost immediately
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with a heavy .45 revolver and an ice-axe. He hefted both gently as he started for the corridor toward Dogtown. "It blundered down the wrong corridor -and landed
among the huskies. Listen -the dogs have broken their chains -"


The half-terrorized howl of the dog pack changed to a wild hunting melee. The voices of the dogs thundered in the narrow corridors, and through them came a low
rippling snarl of distilled hate. A shrill of pain, a dozen snarling yelps.


Connant broke for the door. Close behind him, McReady, then Barclay and Commander Garry came. Other men broke for the Ad Building. Pomroy, in charge of Big Magnet's
five cows, started down the corridor in the opposite direction -he had a six-foot-handled, long-tined pitchfork in mind.


Barclay slid to a halt, as McReady's giant bulk turned abruptly away from the tunnel leading to Dogtown, and vanished off at an angle. Uncertainly, the mechanic
wavered a moment, the fire extinguisher in his hands, hesitating from one side to the other. Then he was racing after Connant's broad back. Whatever McReady had in
mind, he could be trusted to make it work.


Connant stopped at the bend in the corridor. His breath hissed suddenly through his throat. "Great God -" The revolver exploded thunderously; three numbing,
palpable waves of sound crashed through the confined corridors. Two more. The revolver dropped to the hard-packed snow of the trail, and Barclay saw the ice-axe
shift into defensive position. Connant's powerful body blocked his vision, but beyond he heard something mewing, and, insanely, chuckling. The dogs were quieter;
there was a deadly seriousness in their low snarls. Taloned feet scratched at the hard-packed snow, broken chains were clinking and tangling.


Connant shifted abruptly, and Barclay could see what lay beyond. For a second he stood frozen, then his breath went out in a gusty curse. The Thing launched itself
at Connant, the powerful arms of the man swung the ice-axe flatside first at what might have been a hand. It scrunched horribly, and the tattered flesh, ripped by a
half-dozen savage huskies, leapt to its feet again. The red eyes blazed with an unearthly hatred, an unearthly, unkillable vitality.


Barclay turned the fire extinguisher on it; the blinding, blistering stream of chemical spray confused it, baffled it, together with the savage attacks of the
huskies, not for long afraid of anything that did, or could live, held it at bay.


McReady wedged men out of his way and drove down the narrow corridor packed with men unable to reach the scene. There was a sure fore-planned drive to McReady's
attack. One of the giant blow-torches used in warming the plane's engines was in his bronzed hands. It roared gustily as he turned the corner and opened the valve.
The mad mewing hissed louder. The dogs scrambled back from the three-foot lance of blue-hot flame.


"Bar, get a power cable, run it in somehow. And a handle. We can electrocute this -monster, if I don't incinerate it." McReady spoke with the authority of planned
action. Barclay turned down the long corridor to the power plant, but already before him Norris and Van Wall were racing down.


Barclay found the cable in the electrical cache in the tunnel wall. In a half minute he was hacking at it, walking back. Van Wall's voice rang out in a warning
shout of "Power!" as the emergency gasoline-powered dynamo thuddered into action. Half a dozen other men were down there now; the coal kindling was going into the
firebox of the steam power plant. Norris, cursing in a low, deadly monotone, was working with quick, sure fingers on the other end of Barclay's cable, splicing in
a contactor in one of the power leads.