Andre Norton Super Pack. Andre Norton
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Название: Andre Norton Super Pack
Автор: Andre Norton
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Ужасы и Мистика
Серия: Positronic Super Pack Series
isbn: 9781515402626
isbn:
“They can’t do any more to us than they can for running in a plague ship,” Ali pointed out. “Either will get us blasted if we happen into the wrong vector now. So—what do we do?”
“We find out what the plague really is,” Dane said and meant every word of it.
“How?” Ali inquired. “Through some of Craig’s magic?”
Dane was forced to answer with the truth. “I don’t know yet—but it’s our only chance.”
Rip rubbed his eyes wearily. “Don’t think I’m disagreeing—but just where do we start? We’ve already combed Frank’s quarters and Kosti’s—we cleaned out the hydro—”
“Those tri-dee shots of the hydro—have you checked them yet?” Dane countered.
Without a word Ali arose and left the cabin. He came back with a microfilm roll. Fitting it into the large projector he focused it on the wall and snapped the button.
They were looking at the hydro—down the length of space so accurately recorded that it seemed they might walk straight into it. The greenery of the plants was so vivid and alive Dane felt that he could reach out and pluck a leaf. Inch by inch he examined those ranks, looking for something which was not in order, had no right to be there.
The long shot of the hydro as it had been merged into a series of sectional groupings. In silence they studied it intently, using all their field lore in an attempt to spot what each one was certain must be there somewhere. But they were all handicapped by their lack of intimate knowledge of the garden.
“Wait!” Weeks’ voice scaled up. “Left hand corner—there!” His pointing hand broke and shadowed the portion he was calling to their attention. Ali jumped to the projector and made a quick adjustment.
Plants four and five times life size glowed green on the wall. What Weeks had caught they all saw now—ragged leaves, stripped stems.
“Chewed!” Dane supplied the answer.
It was only one species of plant which had been so mangled. Other varieties in the same bank showed no signs of disturbance. But all of that one type had at least one stripped branch and two were virtual skeletons.
“A pest!” said Rip.
“But Sinbad,” Dane began a protest before the memory of the cat’s peculiar actions of the past weeks stopped him. Sinbad had slipped up, the hunter who had kept the Queen free of the outré alien life which came aboard from time to time with cargo, had not attacked that which had ravaged the hydro plants. Or if he had done so, he had not, after his usual custom, presented the bodies of the slain to any crew member.
“It looks as if we have something at last,” Ali observed and someone echoed that with a sigh of heartdeep relief.
Strange Behavior of a Hoobat
“All right, so we think we know a little more,” Ali added a moment later. “Just what are we going to do? We can’t stay in space forever—there’re the small items of fuel and supplies and—”
Rip had come to a decision. “We’re not going to remain space borne,” he stated with the confidence of one who now saw an open road before him.
“Luna—” Weeks was plainly doubtful.
“No. Not after that warn-off. Terra!”
For a second or two the other three stared at Rip agape. The audacity and danger of what he suggested was a little stunning. Since men had taken regularly to space no ship had made a direct landing on their home planet—all had passed through the quarantine on Luna. It was not only risky—it was so unheard of that for some minutes they did not understand him.
“We try to set down at Terraport,” Dane found his tongue first, “and they flame us out—”
Rip was smiling. “The trouble with you,” he addressed them all, “is that you think of earth only in terms of Terraport—”
“Well, there is the Patrol field at Stella,” Weeks agreed doubtfully. “But we’d be right in the middle of trouble there—”
“Did we have a regular port on Sargol—on Limbo—on fifty others I can name out of our log?” Rip wanted to know.
Ali voiced a new objection. “So—we have the luck of Jones and we set down somewhere out of sight. Then what do we do?”
“We seal ship until we find the pest—then we bring in a Medic and get to the bottom of the whole thing,” Rip’s confidence was contagious. Dane almost believed that it could be done that way.
“Did you ever think,” Ali cut in, “what would happen if we were wrong—if the Queen really is a plague carrier?”
“I said—we seal the ship—tight,” countered Shannon. “And when we earth it’ll be where we won’t have visitors to infect—”
“And that is where?” Ali, who knew the deserts of Mars better than he did the greener planet from which his stock had sprung, pursued the question.
“Right in the middle of the Big Burn!”
Dane, Terra born and bred, realized first what Rip was planning and what it meant. Sealed off was right—the Queen would be amply protected from investigation. Whether her crew would survive was another matter—whether she could even make a landing there was also to be considered.
The Big Burn was the horrible scar left by the last of the Atomic Wars—a section of radiation poisoned land comprising hundreds of square miles—land which generations had never dared to penetrate. Originally the survivors of that war had shunned the whole continent which it disfigured. It had been close to two centuries before men had gone into the still wholesome land laying to the far west and the south. And through the years, the avoidance of the Big Burn had become part of their racial instinct as they shrank from it. It was a symbol of something no Terran wanted to remember.
But Ali now had only one question to ask. “Can we do it?”
“We’ll never know until we try,” was Rip’s reply.
“The Patrol’ll be watching—” that was Weeks. With his Venusian background he had less respect for the dangers of the Big Burn than he did for the forces of Law and order which ranged the star lanes.
“They’ll be watching the route lanes,” Rip pointed out. “They won’t expect a ship to come in on that vector, steering away from the ports. Why should they? As far as I know it’s never been tried since Terraport was laid out. It’ll be tricky—” And he himself would have to bear most of the responsibility for it. “But I believe that it can be done. And we can’t just roam around out here. With I-S out for our blood and a Patrol warn-off it won’t do us any good to head for Luna—”
None of his listeners could argue with that. And, Dane’s spirits began to rise, after all they knew so little about the Big СКАЧАТЬ