"Murray Leinster - First Contact (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

Tommy Dort’s eyes brightened. The skipper watched the visiplate, with sweat-droplets on
his forehead.
“Rather pretty, sir,” said Tommy, meditatively. “If they sent anything toward us, it might
seem a projectile or a bomb. So they came close, let out a lifeboat, and went away again. They
figure we can send a boat or a man to make contact without risking our ship. They must think
pretty much as we do.”
The skipper said, without moving his eyes from the plate:
“Mr. Dort, would you care to go out and look the thing over? I can’t order you, but I need
all my operating crew for emergencies. The observation staff—”
“Is expendable. Very well, sir,” said Tommy briskly. “I won’t take a lifeboat, sir. Just a
suit with a drive in it. It’s smaller and the arms and legs will look unsuitable for a bomb. I


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think I should carry a scanner, sir.”
The alien ship continued to retreat. Forty, eighty, four hundred miles. It came to a stop
and hung there, waiting. Climbing into his atomic-driven spacesuit just within the Llanvabon’s air
locks Tommy heard the reports as they went over the speakers throughout the ship. That the other
ship had stopped its retreat at four hundred miles was encouraging. It. might not have weapons
effective at a greater distance than that, and so felt safe. But just as the thought formed itself
in his mind, the alien retreated precipitately still farther. Which, as Tommy reflected as he
emerged from the lock, might be because the aliens had realized they were giving themselves away,
or might be because they wanted to give the impression that they had done so.
He sw6oped away from the silvery-mirror Lianvabon, through a brightly glowing emptiness
which was past any previous experience of the human race. Behind him, the Lianvabon swung about
and darted away. The skipper’s voice came in Tommy’s helmet-phones.
“We’re pulling back, too, Mr. Dort. There is a bare possibility that they’ve some
explosive atomic reaction they can’t use from their own ship, but which might be destructive even
as far as this. We’ll draw back. Keep your scanner on the object.”
The reasoning was sound, if not very comforting. An explosive which would destroy anything
within twenty miles was theoretically possible, but humans didn’t have it yet. It was decidely
safest for the Lianvabon to draw back.
But Tommy Dort felt very lonely. He sped through emptiness toward the tiny black speck
which hung in incredible brightness. The Lianvabon vanished. Its polished hull would merge with
the glowing mist at a relatively short distance, anyhow. The alien ship was not visible to the
naked eye, either. Tommy swam in nothingness, four thousand light-years from home, toward a tiny
black spot which was the only solid object to be seen in all of space.
It was a slightly distorted, sphere, not much over six feet in diameter. It bounced away
when Tommy landed on it, feet first. There were small tentacles, or horns, which projected in
every direction. They looked rather like the detonating horns of a submarine mine, but there was a
glint of crystal at the tip-end of each.
“I’m here,” said Tommy into his helmet phone.
He caught hold of a horn and drew himself to the object. It was all metal, dead-black.- He
could feel no texture through his space gloves, of course, but he went over and over it, trying to
discover its purpose.
“Deadlock, sir,” he said presently. “Nothing to report that the scanner hasn’t shown you.”
Then, through his suit, he felt vibrations. They translated themselves as clankings. A
section of the rounded hull of the object opened out. Two sections. He worked his way around to