"E. E. Doc Smith - Skylark 3 - Skylark Of Valeron" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

SKYLARK OF VALERON
By Edward E. Smith, Ph.D.
Copyright, 1934, 1935, by Street & Smith Publications, Inc.
Copyright, 1949, by Edward E. Smith, Ph.D.
1 DOCTOR DUQUESNE'S RUSE
Day after day a spherical space-ship of Arenak tore through the illimitable
reaches of the
interstellar void. She had once been a war vessel of Osnome; now, rechristened
the
Violet, she was bearing two Tellurians and a Fenachrone-Dr. Marc C. DuQuesne
of
World Steel, "Baby Doll" Loring, his versatile and accomplished assistant, and
the squat
and monstrous engineer of the flagship Y427W -- from the Green system toward
the
solar system of the Fenachrone. The mid-point of the stupendous flight had
long since
been passed; the Violet had long been braking down with a negative
acceleration of five
times the velocity of light.
Much to the surprise of both DuQuesne and Loring, their prisoner had not made
the
slightest move against them. He had thrown all the strength of his
supernaturally powerful
body and all the resources of his gigantic brain into the task of converting
the atomic
motors of the Violet into the space-annihilating drive of his own race. This
drive, affecting
alike as it does every atom of substance within the radius of action of the
power bar,
entirely nullifies the effect of acceleration, so that the passengers feel no
motion
whatever, even when the craft is accelerating at maximum.
The engineer had not shirked a single task, however arduous. And, once under
way, he
had nursed those motors along with every artifice known to his knowing clan;
he had
performed such prodigies of adjustment and tuning as to raise by a full two
per cent their
already inconceivable maximum acceleration. Nor was this all. After the first
moment of
rebellion, he did not even once attempt to bring to bear the almost
irresistible hypnotic
power of his eyes; the immense, cold, ruby-lighted projectors of mental energy
which,
both men knew, were awful weapons indeed. Nor did he even once protest against
the
attractors which were set upon his giant limbs.
Immaterial bands, these, whose slight force could not be felt unless the
captor so willed.