"Smith, E E Doc - Lensman 4 - Gray Lensman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

frequently of old. It was a galaxy-wide struggle for survival between two diametrically opposed,
mutually exclusive, and absolutely incompatible cultures; a duel to the death in which quarter
was neither asked nor given; a conflict which, except for the single instance which Kinnison
himself had engineered, was and of stern necessity had to be one of ruthless, complete, and utter
extinction.
Die, then, the pirates must; and, although adherents to a scheme of existence monstrous
indeed to our way of thinking, they were in no sense cowards. Not like cornered rats did they
conduct themselves, but fought like what they were; courageous beings hopelessly outnumbered
and outpowered, unable either to escape or to choose the field of operations, grimly resolved that
in their passing they would take full toll of the minions of that detested and despised Galactic
Civilization. Therefore, in suicidal glee, Boskonian engineers rigged up a fantastically potent
weapon of offense, tuned in their defensive screens, and hung poised in space, awaiting calmly
the massed attack so sure to come.
Up flashed the heavy cruisers of the Patrol, serenely confident. Although of little
offensive strength, these vessels mounted tractors and pressors of prodigious power, as well as
defensive screens which—theoretically—no projector-driven beam of force could puncture.
They had engaged mauler after mauler of Boskonia's mightiest, and never yet had one of those
screens gone down. Theirs the task of immobilizing the opponent; since, as is of course well
known, it is under any ordinary conditions impossible to wreak any hurt upon an object which is
both inertialess and at liberty to move in space. It simply darts away from the touch of the
harmful agent, whether it be immaterial beam or material substance.
Formerly the attachment of two or three tractors was all that was necessary to insure
immobility, and thus vulnerability; but with the Velantian development of a shear-plane to cut
tractor beams, a new technique became necessary. This was englobement, in which a dozen or
more vessels surrounded the proposed victim in space and held it motionless at the center of a
sphere by means of pressors, which could not be cut or evaded. Serene, then, and confident, the
heavy cruisers rushed out to englobe the Boskonian fortress.
Flash! Flash! Flash! Three points of light, as unbearably brilliant as atomic vortices,
sprang into being upon the fortress' side. Three needle-rays of inconceivable energy lashed out,
hurtling through the cruisers' outer screens as though they had been so much inactive webbing.
Through the second and through the first. Through the wall-shield, even that ultra-powerful field
scarcely flashing as it went down. Through the armor, violating the prime tenet then held and
which has just been referred to, that no object free in space can be damaged—in this case, so
unthinkably vehement was the thrust, the few atoms of substance in the space surrounding the
doomed cruisers afforded resistance enough. Through the ship itself, a ravening cylinder of
annihilation.
For perhaps a second—certainly no longer—those incredible, those undreamed-of beams
persisted before winking out into blackness; but that second had been long enough. Three riddled
hulks lay dead in space, and as the three original projectors went black three more flared out.
Then three more. Nine of the mightiest of Civilization's ships of war were riddled before the
others could hurl themselves backward out of range!
Most of the officers of the flagship were stunned into temporary inactivity by that
shocking development, but two reacted almost instantly.
"Thorndyke!" the admiral snapped. "What did they do, and how?"
And Kinnison, not speaking at all, leaped to a certain panel, to read for himself the
analysis of those incredible beams of force.
"They made super-needle-rays out of their main projectors," Master Technician LaVerne
Thorndyke reported, crisply. "They must have shorted everything they've got onto them to burn
them out that fast."
"Those beams were hot—plenty hot," Kinnison corroborated the findings. "These