"George O. Smith - In the Cards" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith George O)

IN THE CARDS
An Amazing Novelet
By GEORGE O. SMITH
When Jim Forrest stole the block of zonium from Ellen Haynes he almost
upset the entire Solar System, but he had the most compelling motive for theft
in history!

CHAPTER I
The Theft

THE masked man crept down the corridor stealthily. It was quite dark in the hallway but he knew
that it was a synthetic darkness, a matter of temporal convenience, for on a spaceship, time is regulated
by the Terran daily cycle of twenty-four hours.
On spacecraft the passenger-sections observe a strict twelve-hour division between sheer brilliance
and utter darkness. He estimated that it was a full two hours before light-time, which meant that those
couples who preferred to sit and hold hands whilst staring at the rather over-stable aspect of the sky
were by now bedded down and asleep.
Even so the masked man understood that with such it was not the sky that was appealing, and that
under such circumstances time was a minor and often disregarded item. So he went carefully just in case
he should happen upon such.
He was lucky. There were no couples immersed in one another's dreams and so the masked man
went all the way from the auxiliary spacelock near the bottom to the "B" deck, just below the rounded
hemisphere of seamless plastiglass that domed the top of the spacecraft.



He entered the corridor that led to the staterooms and, by the dim hall lights, found the room he
sought. The lock was obviously intended to keep out only honest men and the door was of the same
manufacture. He took a tiny fountain-pen-sized implement from a loop in his belt and applied the business
end to the door.
There was neither sound nor light. Silently the thing worked and it completely removed a sliver
ten-thousandths of an inch wide as he moved the tiny beam in a careless square around the lock. He
grasped the knob in his hand as he completed the cut. That way it would not drop to the floor and make
an unwanted racket. .
Shoving the door open gently, he entered and closed it behind him. He took a moment to replace the
square of aluminum with the lock and, with a couple of quick motions, he welded the square back in
place.



An experienced welder would have called the job 'buttering' because the patch was held by only two
minute battens of welded metal. It could be broken out with a single twist of the hand.
Then, reasonably safe from outside detection—if the steward passed, he would not notice unless he
gave each door a careful scrutiny—the masked man took out a tiny flashlight and searched the room
quickly.
A tousled head of luxuriant hair half covered the pillowcase but the face beneath it was not visible
from the door. The masked man shrugged and turned to the wall compartment where the baggage was
stored. He knew about where to look. He fumbled through three drawers, and finally came up on a box
of some ten cubic inches.
It was not too heavy and the masked man tucked it under one arm and smiled confidently. His