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

Maninea. Ordinarily he'd have come out of overdrive for a corrective sight something over a minute short
of estimated time of arrival; a thousand thousand million miles is leeway enough for anybody. But the
skipper cut overdrive three hours short of arrival, and an hour, and twice more before he went on
interplanetary drive again and called down hoarsely for permission to land. TheCorianis was more than
thirteen hours late.

Even so, she didn't land immediately. Instead of getting clearance in forty-five seconds, it required more
than an hour to get permission to descend. There was confusion aground; there was argument; there was
acute apprehension and flat disbelief and the deepest of deep suspicion. When theCorianis did settle on
the spaceport tarmac, there was hysteria.

Because theCorianis— at leasta Corianis— was already aground. She had landed on Maninea just
forty-seven hours thirteen minutes after lifting off from Kholar. She had brought home the Planetary
President of Maninea,

the Speaker of the Senate of Maninea, and various persons dependent upon them. She had also brought
the Minister of State for Kholar, the Minister of Commerce, the Chairman of the Lower House
Committee on Extra-Planetary affairs, and a mass of aides, assistants, secretaries, wives, children, and
servants. The ship itself was still aground at the spaceport.

When theCorianis landed—the Con'anw-with-a-burned-out-drive-unit—she settled down beside
herself. There were twoCorianis. There were two Planetary Presidents of Maninea. There were also
two Speakers of the Senate, two Ministers of State for Kholar, two Ministers of Commerce, two
Chairmen of the Lower House Committee, and two of very nearly everybody else who'd sailed from
Kholar. And the twos, the twins, the sets, the pairs of individuals, were not merely as much alike as two
peas are like each other. They were as much alike as a pea is to itself. They were exactly alike.

It was quite impossible. It was utterly impossible.

But it was even more embarrassing.

VI

Barely a day after the departure of theCorianis from Kholar, a hastily-chartered mail-ship lifted off to
carry corrected instructions to the emissaries negotiating a trade-treaty on Maninea. This other ship went
out some twenty thousand miles from the planet Kholar, winked into overdrive, stayed in overdrive with
its position relative to Kholar changing at the rate of seven hundred fifty thousand million miles per hour,
and arrived at the Maninean solar system on schedule and without incident. But theCorianis had not
arrived before her. TheCorianis was overdue. There had been a disaster; theCorianis was missing.

The shipping-service force on Maninea tore its collective hair. There was a ship aground, taking off for
Ghalt. It carried away with it a plea from the shipping

service for ships to help hunt for the missingCorianis. The mail-ship sped back to Kholar; it carried a
plea for aid in the urgently necessary search. Meanwhile, Man-inea would take all possible measures.
Kholar would do the same.

The main reason for hope, about theCorianis, was that she carried on board the very latest
distress-signal system for ships of her size and class. She carried a rocket which could drive some
thousands of rffiles away from a disabled ship, and then detonate a fission-type atomic bomb. The rocket