"Murray Leinster - Invaders of Space" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

 Murray Leinster




INVADERS OF SPACE




TANDEM SCI-FI
T.201
First published in Great Britain by
Universal-Tandem Publishing Company Ltd. 1968
Tandem, 33 Beauchamp Place, London SW3




Copyright © Murray Leinster, 1964
 CHAPTER ONE



OUTSIDE the control building, the spaceport lights seemed to rival the stars in number, and to
outshine them in brightness. There was a good two square miles of black tarmac to be seen
from the office window, reflecting the lights in wavery streaks of brightness. But there was no
activity anywhere. Horn, who had no business being in the control room of the spaceport,
listened to a faint buzzing, moaning sound that came out of a loudspeaker overhead. It came
from a space tramp, the Theban, coming down out of the night on emergency-landing status.
The landing-grid operator, whose proper empire this control room was, leaned back in a
tilting chair and negligently watched certain dials and a screen on which a single blurry bright
speck showed. The speck was the Theban, not yet sighted, but on the way to be brought to
ground in the Formalhaut spaceport. The buzzing, moaning sound was not a comfortable one to
hear.
"That's a nasty sort of noise," Horn commented. "The engines that are making it could conk
out any second. Lucky they got this far."
The operator nodded and said negligently, "I'll get 'em down." His manner was one of total
leisure and indifference, but he kept the dials on the wall before him under constant watch.
Once he reached over and adjusted some control. The buzzing moan grew louder. With the
increased volume, other noises could be heard behind it. The buzzing came from a pick-up
microphone in the ship's control room somewhere out in space. Sounds of movement could be
heard: a growling voice; another voice, answering truculently. The growling voice swore.
"Calling ground!" it rasped a moment later. "Calling ground! Where's your beam? Do you
want us banging around up here for ever? Where's your beam?"
The operator said without haste. "You're heading right into it. But you're low and in the
planet's shadow. If you weren't in such a hurry -"
The growling voice rasped, "But we are in a hurry! How about that repair job we need?"
"I told you," said the grid operator, "there's nothing doing in the repair shop until morning
local time. You might as well have gone in orbit to wait. I told you that, too!"