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

lay below the horizon. There was a feeling of vast emptiness, which the metal-lace structure of
the grid emphasized. The only sound anywhere was the infinitely faint shrilling of insects
whose ancestors had been brought from Earth centuries since when a terran ecological system
was established here. It was a singular fact that living things from Earth invariably displaced
native life systems when introduced on new worlds. There were people who considered this
proof that mankind was destined to occupy all the universe, in time yet to come.
But Horn did not meditate on such abstractions. He headed for the spaceport gate, thinking
about Ginny. They were peculiarly specific thoughts: the way she looked when she was
absorbed in something, and the delight she could show when something pleased her. There
were absurd mental pictures, of her making faces back at a child who'd made faces at her, of her
playing with a dog. There was no system in the image sequence. He simply thought about
Ginny and enormous emotions filled him.
 It was a long way to the gate, but he was absorbed. He was almost surprised when the
gateway loomed up ahead of him. He fumbled for the pass to be shown to the gate guards.
They knew him, but there had to be a record of everyone passing through.
His footsteps echoed under the gate roof. Nobody came to take his pass and put it in the
exit-recording machine. It was remarkable! Interstellar freight had to be protected, especially
against pilferage. An unguarded spaceport gate was an invitation to theft. Patrons of the dives
that clustered outside would react instantly to word that the gate was unattended. One needn't
be a fanatic to be disturbed by such a prospect. Horn pushed open the door through which a
guard should have come to record his pass. He went inside, and stumbled over something. It
was a man, unconscious or dead - one of the guards. He saw another body on the floor.
Then he heard the waspish humming sound of a stun pistol. He felt the intolerable pins-and-
needles pricking sensation of a stun-weapon beam. But he heard it and felt it for only the
fraction of a second. In that moment, though, he raged. He knew what was happening, and
why, and he wanted horribly to kill somebody - preferably a man with red hair and a truculent
expression.
He felt himself falling.
Then he felt nothing.
 CHAPTER TWO



HE came back to consciousness very gradually. At the beginning it was a dreamy and
wholly tranquil sensation. He was aware that he existed, but he had the feeling of a
disembodied spirit. His mind worked, but nothing came through his senses for it to work on.
He was awake, but without sensory impressions to orient his thoughts. They were confused;
not mixed, but dreamlike. He thought with extraordinary vividness but without direction. His
mind seemed to go from one thing to another without sequence or purpose. There were
flashing pictures, which were memories presenting themselves without arrangement. He
smelled things. He saw things. He heard things - all of them totally irrelevant and meaningless.
But a part of his mind observed his state. The feeling was like dreaming while knowing that
one dreamed.
He vaguely resented the feeling, and he began to oppose it. The ability of his mind to
contemplate itself and judge itself - exclusively a talent of the human race - directed the
struggle. Horn battled to get his tranquil but kaleidoscopic thoughts under control. He had no
distinct purpose, at first. He did not feel that he had a body. He had no immediate experience
of possessing arms or legs or eyes or lips. He was a mind in emptiness, and his awareness
raced crazily, at first ignoring the struggle of his will to subdue it.
Then he heard something. It was a peculiar jerking pause in a noise he hadn't noticed before.