"E. E. Doc Smith - D' Alembert 1 - The Imperial Stars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

Still he did not enter immediately. He had been lucky so far in that he had not met up with any living
beings. Inside this room, that was bound to change. Human guards would be stationed around the safe
night and day, adding extra protection for its invaluable contents. The man in black had no way of
knowing a priori how many guards there would be; from here on, he would have to rely on luck and his
reflexes.

Stun-gun drawn and set on ten - its highest setting - he braced himself for the invasion. The door opened
quickly as he pressed the nailhead, a point for him; a slow opening would have alerted the men inside
and given them time to prepare for his coming.
-2-
As it was, he was almost too slow. There were five guards and two ferocious dogs inside the room. Three
of the men were in his direct line of vision and fell instantly as his deadly beams swept across them. The
dogs leaped at him from two different directions. He shot the one on his right, but the momentum of its
leap carried its dead body crashing into him. Trained athlete that he was, he used that to advantage,
falling over backward with the dog's corpse on top of him. His fall caused the second dog's leap to be
high, and one of the two surviving guards, who had now had time to draw his blaster, also missed him.
The man in black had truer aim; even as he hit the floor, he felled the fourth guard with the beam of his
stunner.

The fifth guard also had his weapon out and was using it. But he could not get a clear shot, since his
target was covered by the body of the dog. The blaster bolt burned its way uselessly into the already-
dead animal, while the invader's reflexes helped him recover quickly. After hitting the floor he rolled to his
feet again in one continuous motion, stunner beaming. The fifth guard dropped, as did the second dog.
The man in black was now alone in the room with the safe and the valuable piece of parchment it
contained.

Speed was what counted now. Though he was almost certain that none of the guards had had the time to
set off an alarm, he couldn't afford to bet his life on it. Racing over to the safe, he gave it a quick scan and
learned that it was a combination type, wired all over with alarms. The man worked swiftly to neutralize
the alarms; when that was done, he used magnetic scanners to guide him through the combination.

When the last tumbler clicked into place, he gripped the handle tightly. Opening the safe would probably
set off some sort of alarm, no matter how many he'd disconnected. But that wouldn't matter - once he had
the document, the two personal rocket tubes on the back of his belt could take him out the window and
away from here before any possible pursuit could be mounted. With a sigh of relief, then, he yanked down
on the handle and swung the magnisteel door open.

He had time for just an instant of astonishment as the blaster beam from the ceiling, triggered by the
opening of the door, turned his body to a charcoal powder. The charred remains of the expert agent lay in
a tidy heap in front of the totally empty safe.

The second man was dressed in robes of crimson satin, the long flowing sleeves of w hich were edged
with three centimeters of white nohar fur - the rarest and most expensive kind in the Galaxy. The satin
draped softly over his tall, spare frame, giving him a majestic - if somewhat satanic - appearance. His red
satin skull cap, embroidered with gold, clung tightly to his thick mane of black-turning gray hair.

He turned his head leisurely as the messenger brought him the decoded note, then held the folded piece
of paper in his hands for a moment, not even bothering to open it. His long, tapering fingers - which were
almost invisible beneath layers of ruby and diamond rings - caressed the smoothness of the paper. He