"Murray Leinster - The Corianis Disaster" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

gathered into a clump. It made a flame of white-hot metal vapor ten miles in diameter, which in
milliseconds expanded and dimmed, and in hundredths of a second had expanded so far that it did not
even glow.

From a few thousand miles away, it would have looked like a fairly bright spark which went out
immediately. From a few million, it would have seemed the temporary

shining of a rather faint star. At a distance theCorianis would cover in three heartbeats, a naked eye
could not have seen it at all. It was merely some few thousands of tons of metal turned to vapor and
expanding furiously. Presently it would constitute a cloud of iron-and-nickel atoms floating in
space—which would be unusual; there are calcium clouds between the stars, and hydrogen clouds, but
no iron-and-nickel ones. But this would be one.

TheCorianis was gone.

rv

Bedell tensed a little where he sat in an easychair in a lounge on board theCorianis. The lights had
blinked; there was a barely noticeable jar. In a partly-filled dining-room just beyond him, people
continued with what might be either breakfast or lunch, depending on when they got up. Those who
sipped at drinks did not miss a drop. Jack Bedell gazed around him and automatically cocked an eye
where speaker-units permitted warnings and information to be given to the entire ship at once. But
nothing happened. Nothing. In a city, perhaps, one might not notice if the electricity flickered, or if the
floor bumped slightly; but in a ship in space such things are matters of importance.

After a little, Bedell stood up and moved toward the door of that particular room. He glanced along the
corridor outside. Yes. At the end there was a view-port, closed now because the ship was in overdrive
and there was nothing to be seen. But such ports were very popular among ship passengers at
landing-time; they offered the thrill of seeing a world from hundreds, then scores, and then tens of miles
as the ship went down to its landing.

A stout woman got in his way, and Bedell diffidently moved aside. He went on to the end of the
corridor. There was a manual control by which the shutters outside the port could be opened. He took
the handle to open them.

Someone said hesitantly, "Is—is that allowed?"

Bedell turned. It was a girl, a fellow-passenger. He'd noticed her. With the instinct of one who is shy
himself, he'd known that she suffered, like himself, the unreasonable but real agonies of
self-consciousness. She flushed as he looked at her.

"I_I just thought it might be—forbidden," she half-stammered.

"It's quite all right," he said warmly. "I've done it before, on other ships."

She stood stock-still and he knew she wished herself away; he'd felt that way, too. So he turned the
handle and the shutters drew aside. Then he forgot the girl completely for a moment; his hair tried to
stand on end.

Because he saw the stars. In overdrive, one does not see the stars; in mid-journey, one does not go out