"E. E. Doc Smith - D' Alembert 9 - The Omicron Invasion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

about the invaders back to the Empire so it could wage the larger battle effectively.

It was difficult saying no—not because he didn't want to, but also because, on the surface, he had
no overwhelming reason. He couldn't tell Maguire about their mission, and any other excuses sounded
weak even to his own ears. He finally ended up telling her that they were looking for family and friends
from whom they'd been parted when the invasion began, and they had to find out whether the missing
loved ones were still alive and well. Maguire looked skeptical, but accepted Jules's refusal with good
grace. She added the invitation for the group to spend the night here in the house, and that was one
invitation they could accept.

Tatiana asked whether the army had captured any of the aliens' equipment, and Maguire showed
her a few artifacts they had on hand. Tatiana studied the markings on them for a few minutes, then handed
them back with a polite thank you. They were not enough to decipher an entire alien language, but they
were the first real clues to be stored in her computer-assisted memory for later decoding.

In the morning, with sorry farewells, Jules and his comrades left Maguire's headquarters and set
out back toward their car. Along the way they passed the fallen tower in the park, and they paused to
examine it more closely now that the fire had finally gone out. In the bright sunlight it looked less alien
than it had in yesterday's afternoon shadows.

Twisted tits of metal had been thrown everywhere by the fireball explosion, and it would have
taken an army of experts weeks to piece together the way the interior of the passenger disk must have
looked. There was no sign whatsoever of the disk's inhabitants—if, indeed, there'd been any—but they
found some twisted pieces of paneling that looked as though they might have come from control boards.
Tatiana studied them with an experienced eye.

"These symbols are repeated under a number of what look like switches," she pointed out. "They
might be the symbols for 'Off' and 'On.' Those other symbols on dials might be numbers. They seem to use
colors to indicate meanings, too; see, this panel was divided into five different color stripes, each with its
own set of symbols. It's a fascinating problem."

While she was studying the panels, Ivanov made a major discovery: Tucked into a hidden
compartment in the wall of the disk was a series of cards. Each card illustrated some diagram that might
have been a control, with a long set of writings beneath. The cards were charred about the edges from the
heat of the explosion, but being tucked away in a sealed compartment had kept them from being totally
destroyed.

Tatiana's eyes widened with delight as Ivanov brought the cards to her. "An instructional manual!"
she exclaimed as she glanced quickly through them. "We could hardly ask for anything better."

"If it's like some instruction manuals I've seen," Fortier said, "it'll only make things more
complicated. It's hard enough to read them in Empirese."

They found nothing else of value in the wreckage, and walked back to their car. Tatiana was busy
studying her instruction cards with rapt attention, and was lost to the rest of the world. For the others,
though, a decision was brewing. It was left to Ivanov to broach the question as they neared the car.
"Where do we go from here?"
 Jules looked at Lady A. "I think we ought to find the Long River valley and see what's happening
in that slave camp."