"Murray Leinster - Checkpoint Lambda" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

were Patrol I was wondering what the devil to do if they refused to accept you! I couldn't think of any
reason —."
"They'll accept me!" Scott assured him. "Don't worry about that! I'm taking command there. And I'll
look into the matter of the passengers and freight." Then he considered for a moment. "I'll ask you to
wait nearby until I've checked things, though. The transfer-passengers might prefer going on with
you, on this ship, to waiting longer on Lambda." The skipper looked relieved but still uneasy. "I
thought it might be — quarantine stuff." "It's not that," said Scott.
He gave no outward sign, but he didn't like this at all. The Golconda Ship was due to land at Lambda
almost as soon as he got there. Refusal to exchange freight or passengers could mean trouble then.
"I'll go aboard," he said casually," and ask you to wait around for half an hour or so. Of course if
there's nothing really the matter, you can forget the whole thing. But passengers shouldn't be staying
aboard when they're scheduled to leave."
The skipper looked relieved. Scott said, "We're due
to break out for Lambda in a couple of hours, aren't we?"
When the skipper -agreed, Scott said casually, "I'll get set for landing,|
He left the control room and went to his cabin. A Patrol man traveled light. There was no great
amount of preparation to make. He did write a brief, specific report of what the skipper had told
him. He didn't need to draw any inferences. Headquarters could put two and two together. But it
would be a long time getting action.
There'd have been no need for a buoy if there were a habitable world within a reasonable
distance. But the next port beyond Lambda was six days' journey in overdrive — many light-
years in normal space. There'd be no Patrol ship at that port. It could be fifteen days or more
before the seemingly innocent news from the checkpoint would reach an operating Patrol base
with an available ship. Then it would be acted on, but it could be thirty days or longer before an
armed ship could be ordered out and arrive at Checkpoint Lambda. Which would be too late. A
tale of passengers not transferring and freight undelivered could mean that the most stupendously
profitable crime in human history was under way.
It could also mean murder on Lambda.
Which was exactly what Scott had special orders to prevent.
He looked at his watch. It was midday mess-time by the liner's clocks. He abruptly found that he
couldn't eat. But he did look into the liner's dining saloon, and eating seemed less possible than
ever. There were families with children. There were honey-mooners. There were elderly people
for whom the discomfort of going into and breaking out of overdrive was distressing in the
extreme. There were young people. None of them had the least imaginable link with the
Golconda Ship, but Scott knew that the
dining-saloon on Lambda might have looked like this not long ago. It wasn't likely that it looked
like this now.
The reason was the Golconda Ship. Ordinary shipments of treasure by space craft were routinely
put under the special protection of the Space Patrol. The transfer of thousands of millions of
credits in interstellar currency happened often enough. In such cases the Patrol made a routine
check of the ship's proposed passengers, made an equally routine check of the crew, and then
briskly examined freight parcels. The checking of individuals would show up anybody with ideas
of traveling as passengers, then seizing the ship in space. Examination of freight would disclose
ambitious people with ideas of stowing away for any similar purpose. Such precautions had
always been enough. But a report of passengers who didn't transfer to their scheduled ship
indicated that something else had happened. To Scott's first independent command. And while he
was on the way to it.
The Golconda Ship's crew hadn't been checked. It wasn't necessary. It came from some place,
nobody-knew-where, with a cargo of treasure its crew had acquired, nobody-knew-how. In
theory, Scott needed only to go to Lambda, take command, and see that when the Golconda Ship