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

for another liner, and now the insistence that this liner should go on without attempting further
communication, Scott could have written a very plausible outline of events and conditions on the
checkpoint.
Someone who knew where the Golconda Ship would reappear could have organized what could be
the most profitable criminal enterprise in human history. Men could have taken passage from various
worlds to Lambda, there to wait for transportation elsewhere. Other men from other worlds could
arrive to add to their number. Then, suddenly and without warning, the pseudo-passengers could act.
It could be swift and terrible. They'd take the soace buoy, perhaps with crackling blasters. They might
capture and imprison the crew and the authentic passengers. On the other hand, they might not take
that risk.
In any event, if that had happened, the present oc-
cupants of Lambda would be waiting for the Golconda Ship to arrive and to link to the buoy for
heavy-freight transfer. Then there would be swift and terrible action. It was unlikely that anybody on
the Golconda Ship would survive. And then the captors of that ship would sail away with wealth so
vast that divide it as they might, no one of them would ever be less than fabulously rich.
All this was inference. Only Scott suspected it, and there was no Patrol ship which could be
summoned and arrive there within weeks. Scott could make a part of the crime impossible. But there
were the Five Comets. If any part of the crew, or anyone listed on the passenger list was still alive it
would in effect be murder unless he went aboard and attempted the impossible. He had to prevent
their deaths, if they hadn't already been murdered. The fact that even the attempt would mean that he
might be killed couldn't alter the fact that he had a clear obligation.
But all this was still deduction, even though the facts allowed of no other interpretation. Scott was
wrily contemplating the total problem when the communicator-speaker rasped, "What the devil are
you doing? There's nothing to go aboard you and nothing will be received. Get on course and go
away!" ~ Somehow the voice sounded like someone speaking correctly against his usual habit — in
order to seem something he was not.
Scott went to the transmitter. He said formally, "Calling Checkpoint Lambda. This is Lieutenant
Scott, Space Patrol. I have orders to take command of the checkpoint. I am coming aboard. You will
prepare to receive me. Message ends."
There was an indefinable sound, as if someone had uttered a choked exclamation. Then silence. Scott
knew what was happening, of course. There was a conference, on the buoy. To decide what to do
about him. Scott moved the microphone to one side and
said in an official voice, "Captain, if there is difficulty here I shall commandeer this ship by Space
Patrol authority to stand off this checkpoint and warn all other ships of suspicious actions aboard and
not to make contact with it. We will request that all ships report the situation to the Space Patrol."
The skipper of the liner gaped at him. Scott pointed to the microphone close to his lips. The sound of
his voice would have changed as he spoke to the skipper, but he'd have been overheard. They've have
heard him on the buoy. He could actually have done what he'd just mentioned. But there were the
Five Comets. And also there was an unwritten rule in the Patrol that a Patrol man never waited for
help, though he might send for it. In the long run, it paid off.
He put the microphone aside. "Keep a man at the overdrive button," he said, frowning. "If anything
leaves Lambda headed for this ship, he'd better push it. I don't intend to keep you here, of course. It
wouldn't be practical. But I don't like this!"
The skipper opened his mouth to ask a question, but a duty-man across the control room said, "I've
got the buoy, sir."
A vision-screen faded out and brightened again with a relayed telescopic image. It showed first a
monstrous, glittering mass of unoxidized metal that was a fragment of one of the planets Canis
Lambda had lost aeons ago. They'd blown themselves to bits like the fifth planet in the First System.
Now it was an asteroid, too small to be called a planet or to have an atmosphere or to be of any use
except the one that was made of it. It was a marker. Its orbit around the sun was nearly circular and