"Murray Leinster - The Nameless Something" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

The beefy man, at the wheel, growled at him. He shut up. The pattern wasn't right for spies or agents
of a foreign, European Power. Agents of that particular Power, in any case, were packed too full of
ideology to talk as this fellow did. These men sounded like yeggs or crooks who'd seen a chance to
acquire getaway cars that no cop could overtake. Murfree looked dizzily at Bud Gregory, who grinned
uneasily.
"Yeah. That's it, Mr. Murfree. Y'see, I was travelin' across-country, and my car didn't have much
power. Motor'd lost a lotta compression. So I put on a" dinkus that made her pull up hills. And that's
what these fellas want."
"What'd you do?" asked Murfree. His throat was dry and his voice was hoarse. And his head ached
and ached and ached.
"Uh." Bud Gregory looked uncomfortable. "You know them little hunksa stuff that metal's made of.
They wiggle all around. They wiggle faster when they get hot."
Murfree reflected dully that Bud Gregory, who was practically illiterate, was speaking with precision
of the random motion of molecules which is caused by heat.
"I got a kinda idea," said Bud Gregory, "that if I could make all those hunksa stuff move one way
instead of all ways, it would push the car ahead. So I fixed up a dinkus that made 'em all move one way.
It give my car a lot more power."
Murfree was not astonished. Bud Gregory could not astonish him now. Of course if all the molecules
of a substance move in the same direction the substance itself moves in that direction. Using the molecular
motion generated by heat, you should get practically limitless acceleration, quite independent of traction.
It should start a car off at any imaginable speed, it should climb any hill, it should stop a car with
unbelievable suddenness, and if the motion could be controlled—and hence the thrust—it could keep a
car from turning over, and from skidding.
Yes. Also it would be action without a reaction, and it would serve equally to power an ancient
jalopy or an aeroplane. Only, an aeroplane wouldn't need wings because the same molecular thrust could
lift it, and that meant that it could furnish a drive for a spaceship and provide the direct means for the
conquest of the stars.
And Bud Gregory had devised it to make his ancient car climb hills! "Then one day I seen some
dirt-track races," explained Bud Gregory. "I seen fellas bettin' on 'em, so I made a deal with a driver and
put my dinkus on his car. He could go faster, so he won, and I'd bet on him, and won some, too. It was
pretty easy money, Mr. Murfree, and I don't never figure on workin' myself to death."
"Whatever you use with that drive gets cold," Murfree said dully.
"Yeah," said Bud Gregory nodding. "I use the motor to pull the car, and it gets cold. That's why I run
the motor, so's it won't get too cold to push. I been followin' the dirt-track races ever since," he added,
"rentin' out my dinkus to drivers an' bettin' on 'em."

AT THIS, Murfree, kidnaped and with his head one monstrous ache, felt again that helpless, irritated
envy with which Bud Gregory always inspired him.
Bud had made a heat transformer which turned heat directly into kinetic energy! He'd made a device
which could replace every motor on earth by a simpler element, and raise the amount of power available
by an astronomical figure! He'd created an invention which could go far toward making Earth a paradise
and mistress of far-flung planets —and he used it to win dirt-track races so he could bet two or four or
five dollars at a time and so live without working!
Now that same device—which could mean the survival of humanity in those distant ages when the
sun begins to cool—that same device would now be applied to provide thieves and holdup men with
getaway cars the police could not overtake!
Murfree did not believe his captors were spies or aliens. They were simply criminals. And presently
they would very probably kill him, because they'd want the secret of their success to remain a secret and
Bud Gregory would doubtless be kept a prisoner as long as he was useful.
And meanwhile that European Power would pile one sardonic demand upon another—making sure