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

“It’s records,” returned Jack curtly.
“But how do you explain it, Gary?” asked the commander mildly.
“They’re sending now from a space ship, sir,” replied Jack briefly,
“which is moving toward us at four times our maximum acceleration. And they’re
flashing us a signal at the same interval, according to their clocks, as
before.”
A pause. Helen Bradley smiled warmly. The commander thought carefully.
Then he admitted:
“Very good, Gary! It sounds plausible. What next?”
“Why, sir,” said Jack, “since the rate of change shifted, a week ago, it
looks as if that other space ship started to decelerate again. Here are my
calculations, sir. If the signals are sent at the same interval they kept up
for over a moment, there is another space ship headed toward us, and she is
decelerating to stop and reverse and will be matching our course and speed in
four days and eighteen hours. They’ll meet and surprise us, they think.”
The commander’s face lighted up. “Marvelous, Gary! They must be 1ar
advanced indeed in civilization! Intercourse between two such peoples,
separated, by four light-years of distance! What marvels we shall learn! And
to think of their sending a ship far beyond their own system to greet and
welcome us!”
Jack’s expression remained grim. "I hope so, sir,” he said dryly.
“What now, Gary?” demanded Alstair angrily.
“Why,” said Jack deliberately, “they’re still pretending that the
signals come from their planet, by signaling at what they think are the same
times. They could exchange signals for twenty-four hours a day, if they chose,
and be working out a code for communication. Instead, they’re trying to
deceive us. My guess is that they’re coming at least prepared to fight. And if
I’m right, their signals will begin in three seconds, exactly.”
He stopped, looking at the dials of the receptor. The tape which
photographed the waves as they came in, and the other which recorded the
modulations, came out of the receptor blank. But suddenly, in just three
seconds, a needle kicked over and tiny white lines appeared on the rushing
tapes. The speaker uttered sounds.
It was a voice which spoke. So much was clear. It was harsh yet
sibilant, more like the stridulation of an insect than anything else. But the
sounds it uttered were modulated as no insect can modulate its outcry. They
formed what were plainly words, without vowels or consonants, yet possessing
expression and varying in pitch and tone quality.
The three men in the control room had heard them many times before, and
so had the girl. But for the first time they carried to her an impression of
menace, of threat, of a concealed lust for destruction that made her blood run
cold.


II


The space ship hurtled on through space, her rocket tubes sending forth
small and apparently insufficient purple flames which emitted no smoke, gave
off no gas, and were seemingly nothing but small marsh fires inexplicably