"Edmond Hamilton - Captain Future 27 - Birthplace of Creation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Edmond)

That was its purpose. It should work. But if
it did not . . .
He waited, the muscles of his belly
knotted tight. There was no flash or tremor
of a blast. After he had counted slowly to a
hundred he got up again and looked. The
red pip had faded from the ground-glass
screen. There was a white one in place of
it.
Garrand watched that white pip as
though it were the face of his patron saint,
hauling the sledge on slowly through that
outer circle and through the ones beyond it
that were only guessed at. Three times
more the urgent clicking sounded in his
ears and the dials and pointers changed--
and three times the pip faded from red to
white and Garrand was still alive when he
reached the metal valve door set into the
floor of the crater.
P
3
The controls of that door were plainly in
sight but he did not touch them. Instead he
hauled a portable scanner off the sledge
and used it to examine the intimate
molecular structure of the metal and all its
control connections. By this means he
found the particular bolt-head that was a
switch and turned it, immobilizing a
certain device set to catch an unknowing
intruder as soon as he opened the valve.
Within minutes after that Garrand had
the door open and was standing at the head
of a steep flight of steps, going down. His
heart was still thudding away and he felt
weak in the knees--but he was filled with
exultation and a great pride. Few other
men, he thought, perhaps none, could have
penetrated safely to the very threshold of
this most impregnable of all places in the
Solar System.
He did not relax his caution. A large
mass of equipment went with him down
the dark stairway, including the scanner.
The valve closed automatically behind him
and below in a small chamber he waited
until pressure had build up and another
door automatically opened. He found
nothing more of menace except a system of