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

A voice barked abruptly from the speaker, originating in the space tramp now descending.
 "Look here!" it said furiously, "if we can't get an emergency repair job, cancel this landing!
Push us out, and we'll go somewhere else. We're in a hurry!"
The grid operator looked annoyedly at Horn, to call attention to the unreasonable demand.
Horn shrugged. The operator said, "You asked for emergency landing. You're getting it.
Regulations say an emergency landing, once begun, has to be completed, and the ship must be
surveyed before it's lifted off again." He added in a chiding tone, "Too many skippers clipped
hours off in-port time by claiming emergency. You know that."
The voice from the speaker bellowed profanity. The operator turned down the volume until
the voice was a tiny sound, mouthing unspeakable things. He watched his dials. After a long
wait he turned on the warning lights outside, and any atmosphere flier in the neighbourhood
would be made aware that a ship was coming down from space. Of course at this hour of the
night there was no great need for the warning.
"Where'd this Theban come from?" asked Horn. The operator shook his head to signify that
he didn't know.
"If they came down the ship lane, the Danae'll follow. They'll know if there are any
warnings to spacemen out for that lane. It's pretty clear, usually. But I'll ask."
The operator nodded. "Space travel always seems perfectly safe," he, observed, "until you've
got somebody travelling. Then you worry."
Horn said restlessly, "Right! The Danae's a good ship. I designed her engines. She's as good
a ship as there is. But I have someone aboard her. So naturally -"
He walked uneasily to a window and looked out. It was quiet and still and the innumerable
lights of the spaceport - especially the half-mile-high landing grid - looked curiously lonely.
But all places look lonely when night falls and there is no activity where everything was hustle
and bustle during the day. During daylight there'd be cargo planes landing on and taking off the
tarmac outside. There might be a space freighter aground, loading or unloading. Sometimes
there'd be a liner on the tarmac inside the grid, putting off mail and passengers' baggage and
fast-freight items, doing everything in a great hurry to get back to space and the long ship lanes
again.
Horn looked up at the sky. The Theban had been locked on to the grid from an unusually
low altitude, but it took time to bring her to ground. Horn knew it was very likely the tramp
had come down some or all of the route the Danae was to traverse. The Danae had long since
lifted off from Canna II. She'd have headed towards the Inner Rim. At Thotmes she'd have
landed and lifted off again to thread her way through the Beryliines. That was tricky
astrogation, but the ship lane through was well surveyed and beaconed. After landing on
Wolkim for passengers and freight, she'd turn and come down the Rhymer passage and
triumphantly to Formalhaut where Horn was waiting.
She should be safe in all this journeying, and Horn knew it; but he was nevertheless uneasy.
It was the sort of unease a man gets when he knows something about space. It was Horn's
profession to design space-drive engines. Designed, as such things were, for specific hulls,
engines were no longer separate mechanisms but parts of the hull itself. And they were
trustworthy. Space travel was recognized as safe. Even large financial institutions entrusted
enormous sums in interstellar credit notes to space transportation. Which meant much more
safety than passenger traffic required. When ships were truisted to carry money, they had to be
safe indeed!
 Nowadays ships didn't even carry engineer officers. They carried auxiliary drives instead.
There hadn't been an engine failure in a modern ship in scores of years, and anyhow there
weren't enough qualified men to ride uselessly through the void, waiting for accidents that
didn't happen. So Horn wasn't worried about the Danae's drive. He worried about space itself.
Space wasn't empty. Accidents could happen despite totally trustworthy ship engines. The