Читать книгу Skylark DuQuesne - Edward Elmer Smith - Страница 7

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As has been said, the Llurdi were a literal folk. Klazmon’s directive had specified “... that no even theoretically possible attack on this planet will succeed.”

Hence that was precisely what had been built. No conceivable force or combination of forces, however applied and even at pointblank range, could crack Llurdiax’s utterly impenetrable shields.

Nor was that all; for Llurdan engineers, as well as Llurdan philosophers, were thoroughly familiar with the concept that “The best defense is a powerful offense.” Wherefore Llurdiax’s offensive projectors were designed to smash down any theoretically possible threat originating anywhere within a distance that light would require one and three-quarters millions of Tellurian years to traverse.

Under the thrustings and the stabbings, the twistings and the tearings, the wrenchings and the bludgeonings of those frightful fields of force, seventeen sets of Fenachrone defensive screens—outer, intermediate, and inner—went successively upward through the visible spectrum, through the ultra-violet, and into the black of failure; baring the individual vessel’s last lines of defense, the wall-shields themselves.

Then Klazmon increased the power, gouging and raving at those ultra-stubborn defenses until those defenses were just barely holding; at which point he relaxed a little, read his verniers, leaned back in his bucket seat, and took stock.

The marauding spaceships were tremendous things; cigar-shaped; flying in hollow-globe formation with one vessel—the flagship, of course—at the exact center; spaced so closely that their screens had overlapped—overlapped in such fashion that unless and until that shell of force was broken no attack could be made upon that central ship.

So far, so good. With the overwhelming superiority of ultimate-planetary over any at-all-probable mobile installations he, Llanzlan Klazmon the Fifteenth, had smashed that shell completely. He could, he was sure, destroy all those vessels as completely.

But it would not do at all to destroy even one of them without examining both it and its crew. Klazmon had to know the who and the what and the wherefore and the how and the why. Therefore, leaving all of his attacking beams exactly as they were, Klazmon assembled another gigantic beam—the entire output of one Llurdiaxian fortress—and hurled it against the tail-section of the flagship.

Wall-shield and tail-section vanished in a few nanoseconds of time; and not only the tail-section, but also a few hundreds of yards of the flagship’s prodigious length as well, became a furiously raging fireball; a sphere of violence incredible.

Klazmon drove his projection forward then, through the now unresisting steel wall and into the control room; where it was met by blasts of force from the hand-weapons of the Fenachrone officers.

This demonstration, however, lasted for only a second or two. Then those officers, knowing what it was that was standing there so unconcernedly, abandoned their physical assault and attacked the invading projection with the full power of the huge, black, flame-shot wells of hypnotic force that were their eyes. When the mental attack also failed they merely stood there; glaring a hatred that was actually tangible.

Klazmon immobilized each one of the officers individually with pencils of force and began to study them intensively. While much shorter and thicker and wider and immensely stronger than the Jelmi of the Realm, they were definitely Jelmoid in every important respect ... yes, the two races had certainly had a common ancestry, and not too far back. Also, their thinking and conduct were precisely as was to be expected of any Jelman or Jelmoid race that had been allowed to develop in its unsane and illogical way for many thousands of years without the many benefits of Llurdan control!

They would of course have thought-exchange gear; any race of their evident advancement must have ... ah, yes; over there.

Now—which of these wights would be the admiral? That one wearing the multiplex scanner would be the pilot; that one facing the banks of dials and gages would be the prime engineer; those six panels had to be battle panels, so those six monsters had to be gunnery officers ... ah!

That one there—off by himself; seated (in spite of the fact that with their short, blocky legs no Fenachrone had any need, ever, to sit) at a desk that was practically a throne; facing no gadgetry and wearing consciously an aura of power and authority—that one would be the one Klazmon wanted.

Klazmon’s projection flashed up to the motionlessly straining admiral. The helmets of the “mechanical educator” snapped onto the Llurd’s quietly studious head and onto the head with the contemptuously sneering face—the head of First Scientist Fleet Admiral Sleemet of the Fenachrone.

That face, however, lost its sneer instantly, for Sleemet—even more overweeningly and brutally and vaingloriously prideful now than were the lower echelons of his race—had never imagined the possibility of the existence of such a mind as this monstrous invader had.

Klazmon’s mind, the product of seventy thousand years of coldly logical evolution, tore ruthlessly into the mind of the Fenachrone. It bored into and twisted at that straining mind’s hard-held blocks; it battered and shattered them; it knocked them down flat.

Then Klazmon, omnivorous scholar that he was, set about transferring to his own brain practically everything that the Fenachrone had ever learned. Klazmon learned, as Richard Seaton had learned previously, that all Fenachrone having authority and responsibility were meticulous record-keepers. He learned what had happened to the civilization of the Fenachrone and to its world, and who had done it and how; he learned that each and every captain knew exactly the same and had exactly the same records as did First Scientist Fleet Admiral Sleemet himself; he learned that each vessel, alone by itself, was thoroughly capable of re-creating the entire Fenachrone civilization and culture.

A few of the many other thousands of things that Klazmon learned were: That there were many Jelman and Jelmoid—human and humanoid, that is—races living in what they called the First Galaxy. That all these races were alike in destructiveness, belligerence to the point of war-lust, savagery, implacability, vengefulness, intolerance, and frightfulness generally. Not one of them (by Klazmon’s light!) had any redeeming features or qualities whatever. That all these races must be destroyed if any worthwhile civilization were ever to thrive and spread.

There was no word in any language of the Realm of the Llurdi corresponding even remotely to “genocide.” If there had been, Klazmon would have regarded it an etymological curiosity. All those surviving Fenachrone would have to die: no such race as that had any right whatever to live.

Before being destroyed, however, they would have to be studied with Llurdan thoroughness; and any and all worthwhile ideas and devices and other artifacts should be and would be incorporated into the Llurdan-Jelman way of life.

One vessel would be enough, however, to preserve temporarily for the purpose of study. In fact, what was left of the flagship would be enough.

The now-vanished tail-section had contained nothing new to Llurdan science, the encyclopedic records were intact, and the flagship’s personnel—males and females, adults and adolescents and children and babies—were alive and well.

Wherefore sixteen sets of multiplex projectors doubled their drain of power from Llurdias’ mighty defensive girdle, and all the Fenachrone aboard sixteen superdreadnoughts died in situ, wherever they happened to be, as those sixteen vessels became tiny sunlets.

And the llanzlan issued orders:

1) The bulk of the Fenachrone flagship was to be brought in to the llanzlanate at full sixth-order drive.

2) A test section of the llanzlanate was to be converted at once to a completely authentic Fenachrone environment.

3) Every possible precaution was to be taken that no Fenachrone suffered any ill effects on the way, during transfer to their new quarters, or while in their new quarters.

Dropping the Fenachrone flagship and its personnel from his mind, Klazmon immersed himself in thought.

He had learned much. There was much more of menace than he had supposed, in many galaxies other than Galaxy DW-427-LU ... especially that so-called First Galaxy ... and particularly the Green System or Central System of that galaxy? The green-skinned Norlaminians—how of them? And how of that system’s overlord, Seaton of Tellus? That one was, very evidently, a Jelm ... and, even after making all due allowance for Sleemet’s bias, he was of a completely uncontrolled and therefore extremely dangerous type.

And as, evidently, his was a mind of exceeding power, he could very well be a very dangerous and quite immediate threat.

The mergons must be wider-spread even than originally planned and they must be on the lookout for this Overlord Seaton. In fact, he might be worth interviewing personally. It might be well worth while, some of these years, to take some time off and go to that distant galaxy, purposely to make that Jelm Seaton’s acquaintance ...

Shrugging his shoulders and shaking both wings, Klazmon cut off his projection and called another meeting of his Board of Advisors.

He briefed them on what had happened; then went on:

“We must protect all our planets in the same way and to the same extent that this planet Llurdiax is protected now: a course of action now necessary because of these many Jelman and Jelmoid races that have been developing for untold millenia in their unsane and illogical ways, with no semblance of or attempt at either guidance or control.

“Second: any force of any such race that attacks us will be destroyed before it or they can do us any harm.

“Third: the manufacture and distribution of mergons will continue indefinitely at the present rate.

“Fourth: No chance or casual vessel or fleet traversing any part of the vast volume of space to be covered by our mergons is to be destroyed, or even hailed, until I myself decide what action, if any, is to be taken.”

So saying, the Llanzlan Klazmon dismissed his advisors. His great wings fanned idly as he contemplated what he had done. He was well pleased with it. He had, he reflected, scratching his head contentedly with the tip of his tail, provided for every possible contingency. Whatever this Jelm, or Jelmlike creature, named Seaton might be or do, he would pose no real threat to the llanzlanate.

Of that Klazmon was one hundred per cent sure ...

And wrong!