"Murray Leinster - Propagandist" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

at our mercy. Might they not pretend friendship in order to escape with information leading to our
destruction? Could we trust the friendship of any race at all which sent a single ship to spy?"

There was silence. Two centuries before, another ship had entered the Masan system. Half a planet
devastated, and millions upon millions of lives, had been the cost of the destruction of that one ship. But
its destruction had been necessary. Its crew made no response to peaceful overtures. Wherever they
landed they destroyed, ferociously, everything savoring of a rival civilization. Especially the inhabitants.
They could not be treated with—only killed.

"If," said the Spokesman for the Third Continent wistfully, "we could capture a single member of this
spaceship's crew, we could make sure that friendship was hopeless. It is a pity we cannot make sure
before—"

"It is a great pity," said the Moderator bleakly. "To convert not only our civilization but our people to
endless war, for all time, is the greatest of pities. But I do not think there is anything else to do. Will you
vote upon preparations for the destruction of this ship?"

The vote was reluctant but unanimous. For war.

The Kermessee sent off the torp from the aft communications room. It was not an impressive device, the
torp, merely a cigar-shaped object some six feet long. After leaving the Kemessee it would drive away at
thirty-five gravities' acceleration for fifteen minutes and then go into overdrive—when it would cease to
exist, as far as normal space was concerned. Its disappearance would be marked by the emission of a
monstrous surge of energy—a "whango wave"—which could be detected at hundreds of millions of
miles. Near home base it would come out of overdrive with the emission of another, similar, wave. The
second wave was useful. From Masa Gamma to the Kermessee's home base was some eighty light-years.
A space-radio message transmitted by tight beam would reach home base only in time to be of interest to
the crew's greatgrandchildren. But the torp would arrive within days, its reappearance wave would be
picked up by a far-flung net of communications ships, and they would receive and forward the torp's
automatically transmitted messages, and later pick it up for the recovery of written data and physical
specimens.

Buck was not allowed to be present at the launching. He was a large dog, and the aft communications
room was in the tapering, slender tail of the Kermessee. It would be crowded. Holden ordered him out.
And Buck was far too well assured, both of Holden's affection for him and of his own worth, to be
sensitive about such a matter. He knew there were times when he couldn't be underfoot. But he also
knew that he was welcome anywhere else on the ship. He went trotting sedately in search of inferior, but
still human, com-



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pany until his master could allow him around again.

He found crew members stocking a lifeboat for its special mission. He went companionably into the
lifeboat with the working party. He wriggled into the control cubicle with the man sent to remove its
records —and observed. Presently other men arrived, the work party left, and there were sundry heaving
movements of the lifeboat. Buck blinked from where he lay more or less curled up on the floor. Stars