The Mysterious Planet: читать книгу онлайн полностью и бесплатно

Ahead, there was the sound of some kind of work going on, almost completely foreign to this quiet capital city of Thule. Bob passed down another business block and found a larger park on his left. The noise was coming from there, and he followed it to its source with his eyes.

Workmen were digging holes in the ground and tamping down a solid foundation, obviously getting ready to move the Navy patrol ship that stood at one side onto a permanent location.

The ship was a new model, suitable for one-or two-man control, and fast; it was about twice the size of the Icarius. Emblazoned on the side were the emblems of a Staff Courier and Junior Commander.

Bob had stopped abruptly to stare at it, and the two Thulians made no effort to hasten him onward. They had tried to keep him from going this way, but now that he was here they seemed content to let him stare at it.

He knew it had been the ship his father had come in. The rating and branch of service were both right. It fitted perfectly. But there was no way of telling how long ago it had been captured; it could have been a week before or within the hour. Bob studied it again, and saw that there were no signs of injury on it. Apparently the capture had been accomplished without any major battle.

But there was nothing more to be learned. Bob headed down the street toward the presidential offices, with the two Thulians beside him.

In the hall outside the offices of the president, there was a small mob of people numbering perhaps a hundred and fifty. All were from the Federation, and Bob realized that they were the prisoners whom he had never seen before. They seemed to be in good condition, though none looked too happy. Standing at both ends of the hall in which the moving belt had been stopped were groups of guards with guns in their hands.

Bob looked over their ranks quickly, trying to spot his father, but there was no sign of Griffith.

Apparently these men and women had come from the freighter and the passenger ship Thule had taken over months before.

Then President Faskin came hurrying down the hall with no pomp or ceremony and no body of guards. He jostled through the crowd of Federation citizens. They scowled, but nobody made a move toward him, and he passed through the doors and out of sight. A minute later, the doors were thrown open, and the guards began herding the prisoners in.

Ondu and Valin held Bob back. “Not with them. He’ll want to see you alone, Bob,” Ondu told him.

The doors had been closed behind the prisoners. Whatever went on took very little time, however, and they soon came out again, and were guarded down the hall toward the escalators.

This time when the doors opened, Ondu and Valin indicated that Bob was to go in. He walked ahead of them, and down the center of the room until he stood facing the desk of President Faskin. The man looked up and smiled at him.

“Good morning, Robert. Sit down, sit down. We’re not as formal as you people of the Federation.” He was speaking in perfect English, and the smile deepened at Bob’s start of surprise. “Naturally, I learned this as quickly as I could; the only way to understand a culture is to speak the language. We learned that in the days when we had fifty or more languages on Thule.”

He swung slowly to face Valin. “Ready to report on what happened, Valin?”

“Yes, sir. I tuned our transmitter to his receiver, and sent the message until I was sure he’d heard it. Then nothing much happened until we went out. I knew he had decided to act on it when he obtained some of our clothing in a neutral shade. I managed to substitute a locator for one of the buttons. Later the boys tricked me into leaving Bob alone in his suite, and he went out. I waited fifteen minutes before I followed. By the time I reached him, it was getting dark. Ondu went and stood on the grass ahead of him, and Bob drew his knife. He held it for a moment and put it back.”

It went on from there, a bare, factual account that showed Bob hadn’t been out of their sight for a moment after he entered the park. They must have used infrared scanning to see in the dark, since they reported every movement correctly.

President Faskin nodded quietly. “A good job. Anything wrong with the account, Robert?”

“No. Nothing wrong,” Bob answered bitterly. Whatever their purpose, they’d tricked him very neatly.

“Good. Then you admit drawing the knife?” He took Bob’s nod for an answer. “Why?”

“Because I thought the man there was endangering my father and myself.”

“I see.” Faskin seemed neither pleased nor displeased. “Why didn’t you use it?”

Bob shook his head. “I don’t know. I suppose because I’ve been taught not to stab a man in the back.”

“But he wasn’t a man, Robert,” Faskin insisted. “He was a native of Thule—resembling your race, but totally unrelated!”

“What’s the difference?” Bob asked wearily.

The president nodded again. “Um-m-m, a good question, Robert. It’s one I wish I knew the exact answer to.

Is there a difference in whether one is human or Thulian, and what is it? I can’t answer that question. But maybe you have some others?”

“I’m curious about how you got that message from my father,” Bob told him. “I know my father’s voice, and that was his voice.”

“Certainly. But he never said those words. We simply cut syllables out of recordings of his speech, pasted them up on a new tape as we wished, and then smoothed them over where we had to. It’s an old technique. Isn’t it, Commander?”

Bob swung about abruptly to see his father seated a few feet beyond him. “Dad!”