The Greatest Works of E. E. Smith. E. E. Smith

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СКАЧАТЬ know that we'll get what we want anyway, with or without you. With you, though, it will be easier and quicker, so I am authorized to offer you, besides the twenty six million credits ..." he savored the words as he uttered them: "twenty two and one-half percent of Spaceways. On today's market that is worth fifty million credits; ten years from now it will be worth fifty billion. That's my high bid; that's as high as we can possibly go."

      "I'm glad to hear that—I'm still not interested," and Samms strode away, calling his friend Kinnison as he did so.

      "Rod? Virgil." He told the story.

      "Whew!" Kinnison whistled expressively. "They're not pikers, anyway, are they? What a sweet set-up—and you could wrap it up and hand it to them like a pound of coffee...."

      "Or you could, Rod."

      "Could be...." The big Lensman ruminated. "But what a hookup! Perfectly legitimate, and with plenty of precedents—and arguments, of a sort—in its favor. The outer planets. Then Alpha Centauri and Sirius and Procyon and so on. Monopoly—all the traffic will bear...."

      "Slavery, you mean!" Samms stormed. "It would hold Civilization back for a thousand years!"

      "Sure, but what do they care?"

      "That's it ... and he said—and actually believed—that they would get it without my help.... I can't help wondering about that."

      "Simple enough, Virge, when you think about it. He doesn't know yet what a Lensman is. Nobody does, you know, except Lensmen. It will take some time for that knowledge to get around...."

      "And still longer for it to be believed."

      "Right. But as to the chance of Interstellar Spaceways ever getting the monopoly they're working for, I didn't think I would have to remind you that it was not entirely by accident that over half of the members of the Solarian Council are Lensmen, and that any Galactic Councillor will automatically have to be a Lensman. So go right ahead with what you started, my boy, and don't give Isaacson and Company another thought. We'll bend an optic or two in that direction while you are gone."

      "I was overlooking a few things, at that, I guess." Samms sighed in relief as he entered the main office of the Patrol.

      The line at the receptionist's desk was fairly short, but even so, Samms was not allowed to wait. That highly decorative, but far-from-dumb blonde, breaking off in mid-sentence her business of the moment, turned on her charm as though it had been a battery of floodlights, pressed a stud on her desk, and spoke to the man before her and to the Lensman:

      "Excuse me a moment, please. First Lensman Samms, sir...?"

      "Yes, Miss Regan?" her communicator—"squawk-box", in every day parlance—broke in.

      "First Lensman Samms is here, sir," the girl announced, and broke the circuit.

      "Good evening, Sylvia. Lieutenant-Commander Wagner, please, or whoever else is handling clearances," Samms answered what he thought was to have been her question.

      "Oh, no, sir; you are cleared. Commodore Clayton has been waiting for you ... here he is, now."

      "Hi, Virgil!" Commodore Clayton, a big, solid man with a scarred face and a shock of iron-gray hair, whose collar bore the two silver stars which proclaimed him to be the commander-in-chief of a continental contingent of the Patrol, shook hands vigorously. "I'll zip you out. Miss Regan, call a bug, please."

      "Oh, that isn't necessary, Alex!" Samms protested. "I'll pick one up outside."

      "Not in any Patrol base in North America, my friend; nor, unless I am very badly mistaken, anywhere else. From now on, Lensmen have absolute priority, and the quicker everybody realizes exactly what that means, the better."

      The "bug"—a vehicle something like a jeep, except more so—was waiting at the door. The two men jumped aboard.

      "The Chicago—and blast!" Clayton ordered, crisply.

      The driver obeyed—literally. Gravel flew from beneath skidding tires as the highly maneuverable little ground-car took off. A screaming turn into the deservedly famous Avenue of Oaks. Along the Avenue. Through the Gate, the guards saluting smartly as the bug raced past them. Past the barracks. Past the airport hangars and strips. Out into the space-field, the scarred and blackened area devoted solely to the widely-spaced docks of the tremendous vessels which plied the vacuous reaches of inter-planetary and inter-stellar space. Spacedocks were, and are, huge and sprawling structures; built of concrete and steel and asbestos and ultra-stubborn refractory and insulation and vacuum-breaks; fully air-conditioned and having refrigeration equipment of thousands of tons per hour of ice; designed not only to expedite servicing, unloading, and loading, but also to protect materials and personnel from the raving, searing blasts of take-off and of landing.

      A space-dock is a squat and monstrous cylinder, into whose hollow top the lowermost one-third of a space-ship's bulk fits as snugly as does a baseball into the "pocket" of a veteran fielder's long-seasoned glove. And the tremendous distances between those docks minimize the apparent size, both of the structures themselves and of the vessels surmounting them. Thus, from a distance, the Chicago looked little enough, and harmless enough; but as the bug flashed under the overhanging bulk and the driver braked savagely to a stop at one of the dock's entrances, Samms could scarcely keep from flinching. That featureless, gray, smoothly curving wall of alloy steel loomed so incredibly high above them—extended so terrifyingly far outward beyond its visible means of support! It must be on the very verge of crashing!

      Samms stared deliberately at the mass of metal towering above him, then smiled—not without effort—at his companion.

      "You'd think, Alex, that a man would get over being afraid that a ship was going to fall on him, but I haven't—yet."

      "No, and you probably never will. I never have, and I'm one of the old hands. Some claim not to mind it—but not in front of a lie detector. That's why they had to make the passenger docks bigger than the liners—too many passengers fainted and had to be carried aboard on stretchers—or cancelled passage entirely. However, scaring hell out of them on the ground had one big advantage; they felt so safe inside that they didn't get the colly-wobbles so bad when they went free."

      "Well, I've got over that, anyway. Good-bye, Alex; and thanks."

      Samms entered the dock, shot smoothly upward, followed an escorting officer to the captain's own cabin, and settled himself into a cushioned chair facing an ultra-wave view-plate. A face appeared upon his communicator screen and spoke.

      "Winfield to First Lensman Samms—you will be ready to blast off at twenty one hundred?"

      "Samms to Captain Winfield," the Lensman replied. "I will be ready."

      Sirens yelled briefly; a noise which Samms knew was purely a formality. Clearance had been issued; Station PiXNY was filling the air with warnings. Personnel and material close enough to the Chicago's dock to be affected by the blast were under cover and safe.

      The blast went on; the plate showed, instead of a view of the space-field, a blaze of blue-white light. The war-ship was inertialess, it is true; but so terrific were the forces released that incandescent gases, furiously driven, washed the dock and everything for hundreds of yards around it.

      The plate cleared. Through the lower, denser layers of atmosphere the Chicago bored in seconds; СКАЧАТЬ