"Murray Leinster - Proxima Centauri" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

Proxima Centauri




THE ADASTRA, FROM a little distance, already shone in the light of the
approaching sun. The vision disks which scanned the giant space ship’s outer
skin relayed a faint illumination to the visiplates within. They showed the
monstrous, rounded bulk of the metal globe, crisscrossed with girders too
massive to be transported by any power less than that of the space ship
itself. They showed the whole, five-thousand-foot globe as an ever so faintly
glowing object, seemingly motionless in midspace.
In that seeming, they lied. Monstrous as the ship was, and apparently
too huge to be stirred by any conceivable power, she was responding to power
now. At a dozen points upon her faintly glowing side there were openings. From
those openings there flowed out tenuous purple flames. They gave little light,
those flames—less than the star ahead—but they were the disintegration blasts
from the rockets which had lifted the Adastra from the surface of Earth and
for seven years had hurled it on through interstellar space toward Proxima
Centauri, nearest of the fixed stars to humanity’s solar system.
Now they hurled it forward no more. The mighty ship was decelerating.
Thirty-two and two-tenths feet per second, losing velocity at the exact rate
to maintain the effect of Earth’s gravity within its bulk, the huge globe
slowed. For months braking had been going on. From a peak speed measurably
near the velocity of light, the first of all vessels to span the distance
between two solar systems had slowed and slowed, and reach a speed of maneuver
some sixty million miles from the surface of the star.
Far, far ahead, Proxima Centauri glittered invitingly. The vision disks
that showed its faint glow upon the space ship’s hull had counterparts which
carried its image within the hull, and in the main control room it appeared
enlarged very many times. An old, whitebearded man in uniform regarded it
meditatively. He said slowly, as if he had said the same thing often before:
“Quaint, that ring. It is double, like Saturn’s. And saturn has nine moons.
One wonders how many planets this sun will have.”
The girl said restlessly: “We’ll find out soon, won’t we? We’re almost
there. And we already know the rotation period of one of them! Jack said that—
”
Her father turned deliberately to her. “Jack?”
“Gary,” said the girl. “Jack Gary.”
“My dear,” said the old man mildly, “he seems well disposed, and his
abilities are good, but he is a Mut. Remember!”
The girl bit her lip.
The old man went on, quite slowly and without rancor: “It is unfortunate
that we have had this division among the crew of what should have been a
scientific expedition conducted in the spirit of a crusade. You hardly
remember how it began. But we officers know only too well how many efforts
have been made by the Muts to wreck the whole purpose of our voyage. This Jack
Gary is a Mut. He is brilliant, in his way. I would have brought him into the
officers’ quarters, but Alstair investigated and found undesirable facts which
made it impossible.”