"Jack Williamson - Hindsight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williamson Jack)

"Minus one"
The sodium screens made little puffs and trails of silver in the great black cube.
The six Earth ships were visible behind them, through the magic of the achronic field
pickups, now spaced in a close ring, ready for action.
Brek Veronar looked down at the jeweled chronometer on his wrista gift from
the Astrarch. Listening to the rising hum of the achron-integrators, he caught his
breath, tensed instinctively.
"Zero!"
The Warrior Queen began quivering to her great guns, a salvo of four firing
every halfsecond. Brek breathed again, watching the chronometer. That was all he
had to do. And in two minutes
The vessel shuddered, and the lights went out. Sirens wailed, and air valves
clanged. The lights came on, went off again. And abruptly the cube of the stereo
screen was dark. The achronintegrators clattered and stopped.
The guns ceased to thud.
'Power!" Brek gasped into a telephone. "Give me power! Emergency! The
autosight has stopped and"
But the telephone was dead.
 There were no more hits. Smothered in darkness, the great room remained very
silent. After an etemal time, feeble emergency lights came on. Brek looked again at
his chronometer, and knew that the battle was ended.
But who the victor?
He tried to hope that the battle had been won before some last chance broadside
crippled the flagshipuntil the Astrarch came stumbling into the room, looking dazed
and pale.
"Crushed," he muttered. "You failed me, Veronar."
"What are the losses?" whispered Brek.
"Everything." The shaken ruler dropped wearily at the control table. "Your
achronic beams are dead. Five ships remain able to report defeat by radio. Two of
them hope to make repairs.
"The Queen is disabled. Reaction batteries shot away, and main power plant
dead. Repair is hopeless. And our present orbit will carry us far too close to the
Sun. None of our ships able to undertake rescue. We'll be baked alive."
His perfumed dark head sank hopelessly. "In those two minutes, the Astrarchy
was destroyed." His hollow, smoldering eyes lifted resentfully to Brek. "Just two
minutes!" He crushed a soft white fist against the table. "If time could be recaptured"
"How were we beaten?" demanded Brek. "I can't understand!"
"Marksmanship," said the tired Astrarch. "Tony Grimm has something better
than your autosight. He shot us to pieces before we could find the range." His face
was a pale mask of bitterness. "If my agents had employed him, twenty years ago,
instead of you" He bit blood from his lip. "But the past cannot be changed."
Brek was staring at the huge, silent bulk of the autosight. "Perhaps" he
whispered"it can be!"
Trembling, the Astrarch rose to clutch his arm. "You spoke of that before,"
gasped the agitated ruler. "Then I wouldn't listen. But nowtry anything you can,
Veronar. To save us from roasting alive, at perihelion. Do you really think"
The Astrarch shook his pale head. "I'm the madman," he whispered. "To speak
of changing even two minutes of the past!" His hollow eyes clung to Brek. "Though
you have done amazing things, Veronar."
The Earthman continued to stare at his huge creation. "The autosight itself