"Murray Leinster - Talents,Incorporated" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

hundred tons standard. Purpose of visit, pleasure-travel. "

A pause. The voice from the spaceport:

"Sir? "
Captain Bors said impatiently, "Oh, let him down and see
if he knows anything about the Mekinese. Then advise him
to go away at once. Tell him why."

"Yes, sir. "
A click. Young Captain Bors returned to his task of burning
papers. These were the confidential records of the Ministry
for Diplomatic Affairs. Captain Bors wore the full-dress
uniform of the space navy of the planet Kandar. It was still
neatly pressed but was now smudged with soot and
smeared with ashes. He had burned a great many papers
today. Elsewhere in the Ministry other men were burning
other documents. The other papers were important
enough; they were confidential reports from volunteer- and
paid-agents on twenty planets. In the hands of ill-disposed
persons, they could bring about disaster and confusion
and interplanetary tension. But the ones Captain Bors
made sure of were deadly.
He burned papers telling of conditions on Mekin itself. The
authors of such memoranda would be savagely punished
if they were found out. Then there were papers telling of
events on Tralee. If it could be said that he were more
painstakingly destructive than average about anything,
Captain Bors was about them. He saw to it that they
burned to ashes. He crushed the ashes. He stirred them. It
would be unthinkable that such morsels could ever be
pieced together and their contents even guessed at.
He went on with the work. His jaunty uniform became
more smeared and smudged. He gave himself no rest.
There were papers from other planets now under the
hegemony of Mekin. Some were memoranda from citizens
of this planet, who had traveled upon the worlds which
Mekin dominated as it was about to dominate Kandar.
They, especially had to be pulverized. Every confidential
document in the Ministry for Diplomatic Affairs was in the
process of destruction, but Captain Bors in person
destroyed those which would cause most suffering if read
by the wrong persons.
In other ministries and other places similar holocausts
were under way. There was practically nothing going on
on Kandar which was not related to the disaster for which
the people of that world waited. The feel of bitterness and
despair was everywhere. Broadcasting stations stayed on
the air only to report monotonously that the tragic event
had not yet happened. The small space-navy of Kandar