"Edmond Hamilton - Captain Future 11 - The Comet Kings" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Edmond)

Edmond Hamilton - THE COMET KINGS
THE COMET KINGS
by Edmond Hamilton
Trapped in the Depths of Halley's Comet, the
Futuremen Battle Fourth-Dimensional Monsters in a Titanic
Struggle to Save the System's Solar Energy!
Captain Future parried the blow by a swift jab of his own dielectric blade. (Chap. IX)
CHAPTER I
Vanishing Spaceships
ILLIONS of miles out beyond Jupiter, the bat-
tered old space-freighter Arcturion plodded
through the void.
M
"I'd just as soon walk to Uranus!" disgustedly ex-
claimed Norton, the young second mate. "I wish I'd got
a berth on a passenger liner. They don't spend weeks
crawling along between planets."
Brower, the veteran first mate, smiled tolerantly at
the impatient young officer.
"You'll get used to it," he predicted. "Me, I kind of
like it. It's restful, plugging along day after day through
these big empty spaces."
"But nothing ever happens!" the younger man com-
1
Edmond Hamilton - THE COMET KINGS
plained, "There's never even a close brush with a mete-
or swarm. I can't stand this deadly monotony."
Ironically, it was at that moment that the catastrophe
broke upon them.
The plodding, droning Arcturion suddenly seemed
to go crazy in space. Its steelite hull plates screamed
beneath the grasp of unearthly forces. The ship hurtled
suddenly sideward in space, as though it had,, been
gripped by a giant, invisible hand.
The sharp shock of that invisible grasp was so pow-
erful that it nullified the Arcturicy's artificial gravita-
tion. Young Norton felt himself hurled against the cab-
in wall, and his brain saw stars.
His last sensation was of mysterious and mighty
forces sweeping the old freighter at undreamable speed
through the void. Then he knew nothing at all.
That was only the first disappearance.
"But there aren't any uncharted meteor swarms out
in that sector of space, sir!"
The man who spoke was a Martian who wore the
dark uniform of the Planet Patrol. He wore a captain's
insignia, too, for Tzan Thar was head of this Jovopolis
Maintenance Division.
His red, solemn face was wrinkled with dismay and
there was anxiety in his large-pupilled black eyes, as he