"Henry Kuttner - Clash by Night (SS Collection) UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kuttner Henry)

'Not a plane?'
'One of the technicians just finished a new tight-beam camouflager for communications. I'm having it installed immediately on all our planes and gliders. Use the boat; it isn't far to the Mob's fort - that long peninsula on the coast of Southern Hell.'
Even on the charts that continent was named Hell - for obvious reasons. Heat was only one of them. And, even with the best equipment, a party exploring the jungle there would soon find itself suffering the tortures of the damned. On the land of Venus, flora and fauna combined diabolically to make the place uninhabitable to Earthmen. Many of the plants even exhaled poisonous gases. Only the protected coastal forts of the Free Companies could exist - and that was because they were forts.
Cine Rhys frowned at Scott. 'We'll use H-plan 7 if we can get the Mob. Otherwise we'll have to fall back on another outfit, and I don't want to do that. The Helldivers have too many subs, and we haven't enough detectors. So do your damnedest.'
Scott saluted. Til do that, sir.' Rhys waved him away,
and he went out into the next room, finding Commander Bienne alone. The officer turned an inquiring look toward him.
'Sorry,' Scott said. 'Geer gets the left-wing command this time.'
Bienne's sour face turned dark red. 'I'm sorry I didn't take a crack at you before mobilization,' he said. 'You hate competition, don't you?'
Scott's nostrils flared. 'If it had been up to me, yqu'd have got that command, Bienne.'
'Sure. I'll bet. All right, captain. Where's my bunk? A flitterboat?'
'You'll be on right wing, with me. Control ship Flintlock.'
'With you. Under you, you mean,' Bienne said tightly. His eyes were blazing. 'Yeah.'
Scott's dark cheeks were flushed too. 'Orders, commander,' he snapped. 'Get me a flitterboat pilot. I'm going topside.'
Without a word Bienne turned to the telaudio. Scott, a tight, furious knot in his stomach, stamped out of headquarters, trying to fight down his anger. Bienne was a jackass. A lot he cared about the Doones-
Scott caught himself and grinned sheepishly. Well, he cared little about the Doones himself. But while he was in the Company, discipline was important - integration with the smoothly running fighting machine. No place for individualism. One thing he and Bienne had in common; neither had any sentiment about the Company.
He took a lift to the ceiling of the Dome. Beneath him Montana Keep dropped away, shrinking to doll size. Somewhere down there, he thought, was Ilene. He'd be back. Perhaps this war would be a short one - not that they were ever much longer than a week, except in unusual cases where a Company developed new strategies.
He was conducted through an air lock into a bubble, a tough, transparent sphere with a central vertical core through which the cable ran. Except for Scott, the bubble was empty. After a moment it started up with a slight jar.
Gradually the water outside the curving walls changed from black to deep green, and thence to translucent chartreuse. Sea creatures were visible, but they were nothing new to Scott; he scarcely saw them.
The bubble broke surface. Since air pressure had been constant, there was no possibility of the bends, and Scott opened the panel and stepped out on one of the buoyant floats that dotted the water above Montana Keep. A few sightseers crowded into the chamber he had left, and presently it was drawn down, out of sight.
In the distance Free Companions were embarking from a larger float to an air ferry. Scott glanced up with a weather eye. No storm, he saw, though the low ceiling was, as usual, torn and twisted into boiling currents by the winds. He remembered, suddenly, that the battle would probably take place over Venus Deep. That would make it somewhat harder for the gliders - there would be few of the thermals found, for instance, above the Sea of Shallows here.
A flitterboat, low, fast, and beautifully manoeuvrable, shot in toward the quay. The pilot flipped back the overhead shell and saluted Scott. It was Norman Kane, looking shipshape in his tight-fitting grey uniform, and apparently ready to grin at the slightest provocation.
Scott jumped lightly down into the craft and seated himself beside the pilot. Kane drew the transparent shell back over them. He looked at Scott.
'Orders, captain?'
'Know where the Mob's fort is? Good. Head there. Fast.'
Kane shot the flitterboat out from the float with a curtain of v-shaped spray rising from the bow. Drawing little water, manoeuvrable, incredibly fast, these tiny craft were invaluable in naval battle. It was difficult to hit one, they moved so fast. They had no armour to slow them down. They carried high-explosive bullets fired from small-calibre guns, and were, as a rule, two-man craft. They complemented the heavier ordnance of the battlewagons and destroyers.
Scott handed Kane a cigarette. The boy hesitated.
'We're not under fire,' the captain chuckled. 'Discipline
clamps down during a battle, but it's O.K. for you to have a smoke with me. Here!' He lit the white tube for Kane.
'Thanks, sir. I guess I'm a bit- over-anxious.'
'Well, war has its rules. Not many, but they mustn't be broken.' Both men were silent for a while, watching the blank grey surface of the ocean ahead. A transport plane passed them, flying low.
'Is Ilene Kane your sister?' Scott asked presently.
Kane nodded. 'Yes, sir.'
'Thought so. If she'd been a man, I imagine she'd have been a Free Companion.'
The boy shrugged. 'Oh, I don't know. She doesn't have the- I don't know. She'd consider it too much effort. She doesn't like discipline.'
'Do you?'
'It's fighting that's important to me, Sir.' That was an afterthought, 'Winning, really.'
'You can lose a battle even though you win it,' Scott said rather sombrely.
'Well, I'd rather be a Free Companion than do anything else I know of. Not that I've had much experience-' • 'You've had experience of war with Starling's outfit, but you probably learned some dangerous stuff at the same time. War isn't swashbuckling piracy these days. If the Doones tried to win battles by that sort of thing, there'd be no more Doones in a week or so.'
'But-' Kane hesitated. 'Isn't that sort of thing rather necessary? Taking blind chances, I mean-'
'There are desperate chances,' Scott told him, 'but there are no blind chances in war- not to a good soldier. When I was green in the service, I ran a cruiser out of the line to ram. I was demoted, for a very good reason. The enemy ship I rammed wasn't as important to the enemy as bur cruiser was to us. If I'd stayed on course, I'd have helped sink three or four ships instead of disabling one and putting my cruiser out of action. It's the great god integration we worship, Kane. It's much more important now than it ever was on Earth, because the military has consolidated. Army,
navy, air, undersea - they're all part of one organization now. I suppose the only important change was in the air.'
'Gliders, you mean? I knew powered planes couldn't be used in battle."
'Not in the atmosphere of Venus,' Scott agreed. 'Once powered planes get up in the cloud strata, they're fighting crosscurrents and pockets so much they've got no time to do accurate firing. If they're armoured, they're slow. If they're light, detectors can spot them and anti-aircraft can smash them. Unpowered gliders are valuable not for bombing but for directing attacks. They get into the clouds, stay hidden, and use infra-red telecameras which are broadcast on a tight beam back to the control ships. They're the eyes of the fleet. They can tell us- White water ahead, Kane! Swerve!'
The pilot had already seen the ominous boiling froth foaming out in front of the bow. Instinctively he swung the flitterboat in a wrenching turn. The craft heeled sidewise, throwing its occupants almost out of their seats.
'Sea beast?' Scott asked, and answered his own question. 'No, not with those spouts. It's volcanic. And it's spreading fast.'
'I can circle it, sir,' Kane suggested.
Scott shook his head. 'Too dangerous. Backtrack.'
Obediently the boy sent the flitterboat racing out of the area of danger. Scott had been right about the extent of the danger; the boiling turmoil was widening almost faster than the tiny ship could flee. Suddenly the line of white water caught up with them. The flitterboat jounced like a chip, the wheel being nearly torn from Kane's grip. Scott reached over and helped steady it. Even with two men handling the wheel, there was a possibility that it might wrench itself free. Steam rose in veils beyond the transparent shell. The water had turned a scummy brown under the froth.
Kane jammed on the power. The flitterboat sprang forward like a ricocheting bullet, dancing over the surface of the seething waves. Once they plunged head-on into a swell, and a screaming of outraged metal vibrated through the
craft. Kane, tight-lipped, instantly slammed in the auxiliary, cutting out the smashed motor unit. Then, unexpectedly, they were in clear water, cutting back toward Montana Keep.