"Tubb,.E.C.-.1956.Space.Born" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tubb E. C)

"Why doesn't Gregson test him?" said Jay disgustedly. "Two minutes on the lie detector would clear up the whole thing. " He frowned at Johnson. "I wouldn't mind betting that the old man's got something to do with this. Look at him, he's as guilty as hell. "
"Better not let Gregson hear you say that, " warned Kennedy. "He knows what he's doing. "
"Maybe, but I... " Jay broke off as the communications man called over to him. "Yes?"
"Call from sector three. That's your sector, isn't it, Jay?"
"That's right. " Jay rose to his feet and crossed over to the operator. "What's wrong?"
"An accident. Man dead on level nineteen, segment three, cubicle four twenty-seven. Call came from a man named Edwards-he said that he'd wait for you by the booth. Clear it up, will you. "
Jay nodded and, leaving Kennedy still staring at the courtroom, walked out into the Ship.
Jay had never seen an anthill, nor had he ever seen a bee hive, but if he had, then the Ship would have reminded him of both. A huge metal egg, it was honeycombed with concentric levels of cubicles: workshops, recreation rooms, hydroponic farms and yeast culture vats for the production of food; kitchens and mess halls for its preparation and serving. Everything essential to life was contained within the titanic hull, from toys for the new-born to gardens to freshen the air, and the whole incredible mass spun on its central axis creating an artificial gravity by centrifugal force, a gravity which increased rapidly towards the outer hull and vanished in the central areas.
Men had built it, not on Earth for that would have been impossible, but in space, fashioning it from prefabricated parts hauled by powerful rockets from the planet or brought from the new base at Tycho on the Moon. A mountain of metal had been used in its construction and, when they had finished the shell, they had fitted it with engines powerful enough to illuminate a world, stocked it with seeds and plants, food and fuel, animals and cultures, so that one day the colonists would be able to set up a new Earth beneath an alien sun.
They had planned well, the builders of the Ship. Fired by the discovery of planets circling Pollux, a star only thirty-two light years away, they had determined to smash the barrier between them and interstellar flight. Speed alone couldn't do it. There was still no way to overcome the Einsteinian equations which set the speed of light as the maximum velocity possible, and at the same time showed that it would take infinite power to reach that velocity. Speed couldn't do it, but time could, and so they had aimed the ship towards Pollux, given it a speed one-tenth that of light, and hoped that the descendants of the original colonists would be able to do what they were unable to do themselves.
But three hundred years is a long time.
First the name of the ship had been discarded from common usage and it had become known only as the Ship. The sense of motion had soon died also, and to the inhabitants of the Ship, the metal cubicles had become their entire universe, static, unchanging, unalterable. They lived and died within the close confines of their metal prison and, with the slow passage of time, even the aim and purpose of their journey became vague and slightly unreal.
But the builders had planned well.
Edwards was fourteenth generation; Jay could tell that without looking at the identification disc on his left wrist. There was a certain stockiness about him, a calm solidity only to be met in the older people. He stepped forward from the booth as he recognized Jay's black shorts and led the officer along a passage.
"He's in here, " he paused by a door. "I haven't told anyone yet. I called in as soon as I saw what had happened. "
"Were you friends?" Jay didn't enter the room immediately; the passage was deserted and it was as good a place as any for preliminary investigation. "Did you know him well?"
"Well enough. He worked in yeast and we almost grew up together. " Edwards shook his head. "I can't understand it. Hans was always a careful sort of man, not the type to mess around with something he knew nothing about. I just can't imagine what made him do it. "
"Do what?"
"You'll see. " Edwards glanced down the long passage narrowing into the distance, both ends curving a little as it followed the circular pattern of the rooms. A young couple came towards them, arm in arm, their heads together, lost in a world of their own. "Maybe we'd better go inside, " he suggested. "This passage usually carries a lot of traffic and we don't want a crowd."
Jay nodded and led the way into the room.
The only two things about the dead man that were recognizable were his yellow shorts and his identification disc. The shorts told Jay that he had worked in the yeast plant; the disc that he was fourteenth generation, his name had been Hans Jenson, and that he had absolutely no right to have done what he apparently had. All electrical gear came under electronics and no one else had the right to remove a masking plate and touch what was behind it. Hans, for some reason, had done just that and had been seared by high voltage current as a result.
Jay dropped to one knee, studying but not touching, his eyes thoughtful as he stared at the evidence. Edwards coughed and shifted his feet.
"What do you make of it?"
"It looks like an accident, " said Jay carefully. "He tampered with the connections and got burned for his trouble. " He looked around the room, a normal two-bunk, four-locker sleeping unit. "Did you share?"
"Yes. "
"Where were you when it happened?"
"Down in the recreation room. Hans and I were watching some tapes when he was called away by some young fellow. I waited for him; then, when he didn't turn up, I guessed that he might have gone to bed. I walked in and found him like this. "
"I see. How long did you wait before following him out of the recreation room?"
"I waited until the end of the tape, about fifteen minutes. "
Edwards hesitated. "I don't believe that this was an accident. "
"What?"
"I said that this was no accident, " repeated Edwards stubbornly. "I knew Hans too well to ever believe that he would do anything like this. Why should he? He worked in yeast-he wouldn't want to tamper with the electrical gear. And if he did, he knew enough about high current never to have touched anything. "
"So you think he committed suicide?"
"No. I think that he was murdered. "
Jay sighed and, leaning against the wall, stared at Edwards. Against his shoulder he could feel the slight, never-ending vibration of the Ship: the impact of thousands of feet, the vibrations of voices and music, the susurration of engines and the countless sounds of everyday life, all caught and carried by the eternal metal, all mingling and traveling until damped out by fresher, newer sounds. A philosopher had once called that vibration the life-sound of the Ship; while it could be heard all was well, without it nothing could be right. Jay didn't know about that; all he knew was that he had grown up with the sound, eaten with it, slept with it, lived with it until he was no more consciously aware of it than he was of his own skin.
"So you think that he was murdered, " he said slowly. "What makes you think that?"
"Simple. Hans would never have removed that plate. And even if he had, he would never have touched a live connection. Hans wasn't a fool. "
"He was an old man, " reminded Jay. Old men sometimes do senseless things. "
"Hans wasn't that old. I'll admit he was fourteenth generation, but so what? I'm fifteenth and yet I'm only a couple of years younger than he was. Hans was one of the fittest and most sensible people I've ever known. " Edwards jerked his head in irritation. "Don't talk to me about age. I know better. "
And that, thought Jay grimly, was just the trouble. Generations could be separated by no more than forty years, because every twenty-year period saw an official change in generation number. Hans could have been forty years older than Edwards, but he could also have been one, and Edwards was suspicious.
"Have you anything else, aside from your own knowledge of the dead man, on which to base your statement that he was murdered?" Jay straightened away from the wall as he spoke and stepped toward the burned thing on the floor. Edwards hesitated.
"I'm not sure, " he said slowly. "What are you getting at?"
"Had he any enemies?"
"Not that I know of. Hans wasn't one to go in for dueling, never had, and he was popular enough in the yeast plant. There's one thing though. "
"Yes?"
"That man I told you about, the youngster who called him away from the recreation room. I know the people in this sector pretty well, and I'd swear to it that he was a stranger and yet... " Edwards broke off, frowning. "I have the feeling that I know him. "
"Would you be able to recognize him again?"
"Yes, but that isn't what I was going to say. I told you that I waited for a while in the recreation room and then I came up here to bed?"
"You did. "
"Well, as I was walking along the corridor I thought I saw a man leave this room. "