"Murray Leinster - The Mutant Weapon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

planetary diameters from the surface of that world. Calhoun's little ship should repair to that
spot. The giant landing grid should then reach out its specialized force field, lock onto the
ship, and bring it gently but irresistibly down to ground. Then Calhoun, representing Med Service,
should confer gravely with planetary authorities about public health conditions on Maris III.
It was not to be expected that anything important would turn up. Calhoun would deliver full
details of" recent advances in the science of medicine. These might already have reached Maris III
in the ordinary course of commerce, but he would make sure. He might-but it was unlikely-learn of
some novelty worked out here. In any case, within three days he should return to the small Med
Ship, the landing grid should heave it firmly heavenward to not less than five planetary diameters
distance, and there release it. And Calhoun and Murgatroyd and the Med Ship should flick into
overdrive and speed back toward headquarters, from whence they had come.
Right now, Calhoun waited for an answer to his landing call. But he regarded the vast disk of the
nearby planet.


file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/D...20Leinster%20-%20The%20Mutant%20Weapon%20.txt (1 of 37) [2/4/2004 11:48:22 PM]
 file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/Desktop/Murray%20Leinster%20-%20The%20Mutant%20Weapon%20.txt

"By the map," he observed to Murgatroyd, "the city ought to be on shore of that bay somewhere near
the terminus. Close to the sunset line."
His call was answered. A voice said incredulously on the spacephone speaker:
"What? What's that? What's that you say?"
"Med Ship Aesclipus Twenty," Calhoun repeated patiently. "Requesting co-ordinates for landing. Our
mass is fifty tons. Repeat, five-oh tons. Purpose of landing: planetary health inspection."
The voice said more incredulously still:
"A Med Ship? Holy-" By the change of sound, the man
down on the planet had turned away from the microphone. "Hey! Listen to this!"
There was abrupt silence. Calhoun raised his eyebrows. He drummed on the control desk before him.
There was a long pause. A very long pause. Then a new voice came on the spacephone, up from the
ground:
"You up there! Identify yourself!"
Calhoun said very politely:
"This is Med Ship Aesclipus Twenty. I would like to come to ground. Purpose of landing: health
inspection."
'Wait," said the voice from the planet. It sounded strained.
A murmuring sounded, transmitted from fifty thousand miles away. Then there was a click. The
transmitter down below had cut off. Calhoun raised his eyebrows again. This was not according to
routine. Not at afl! The Med Service was badly overworked arid understaffed. The resources of
interplanetary services were always apt to be stretched to their utmost, because there could be no
galactic government as such. Many thousands of occupied planets, the closest of them light-years
apart, couldn't hold elections or have political parties for the simple reason that travel, even
in overdrive, was too slow. They could only have service organizations whose authority depended on
the consent of the people served, and whose support had to be gathered when and as it was
possible.
But the Med Service was admittedly important. The local Sector Headquarters was in the Cetis
cluster. It was a sort of interstellar clinic, with additions. It gathered and disseminated the
results of experience in health and medicine among some thousands of colony-worlds, and from time
to time it made contact with other headquarters carrying on the same work elsewhere. It admittedly
took fifty years for a new technique in gene selection to cross the occupied part of the galaxy,
but it was a three-year voyage in overdrive to cover the same distance direct. And the Med Service