The Mysterious Planet: читать книгу онлайн полностью и бесплатно

From in back of Bob, a high voice piped up. “I’m all right, but you’d better take me back, you had! When my father catches you, you’re going to be sorry!”

“You’ll like the Federation men, Emo,” Simon told him. Then bitterness crept into his voice.

“Did Juan tell you, Bob, that he tried to stop me? He actually started throwing his fists around, when he heard my plan. You’d think he’d sold out to the enemy!”

“He was right, Simon,” Bob told him. “You had no business in starting this. I told you about Emo’s position back there.”

“Sure. That’s why I took him. They can’t touch us now, and they won’t dare let us get in any trouble with that network of bombs and warnings they have.”

Juan sighed softly. “Maybe you were right, Simon. But I was afraid. That is why I wanted to stop you until I could see Bob.”

Simon cut the drive suddenly until the pressure on ‘ them was only a little more than the gravity of Earth. “Don’t know why I’m in such a hurry,” he told them. “We’re safe enough with Emo aboard. Hey, you know, you’re right, Juan. I guess I forgot about Bob. When I found those Thulians had switched papers on me, all I could think of was to get out of there fast. I guess maybe I was a bit too hasty. Okay, Juan, I’ll forget it if you will.”

“It is already forgotten,” Juan said. “But what shall we now do with Emo? We cannot bring war about, Simon. And as Bob has said, to keep him from his family of Thule means war.”

“We’ll keep him, all right. Maybe they switched papers on me, but I can remember what the originals said. I sure proved that when I got the old Icarius free, didn’t I? Anyhow, we always knew it had to be war. This just makes it come a little faster.”

“There doesn’t have to be war,” Bob told him. “Right now my father is down there with the president, talking peace. Or he was, before you ran out with Emo.”

It was partly true—talking peace and war. Bob felt suddenly sick as he wondered what was really happening now. If Thule decided to take it out on all the Federation people they had…

Some of the smugness went from Jakes then, but he stuck to his guns. “Aw, you can’t trust Thule. Sure, they’ll talk peace—and then, when they get us off guard, they’ll take over. And we can’t risk it.”

“So you want war?” Juan accused.

“No, I don’t want war! But I don’t want to see our side wiped out because a bunch of fools thought talking about peace was the same as protecting yourself. Hey, look at that!”

In the screen, a flight of the great ships of Thule showed up. There were hundreds of them, and they were spread on all sides of the Icarius, matching her speed and waiting.

Juan stared at it dully. “They will find some way,” he warned. “They have ways of freezing the air, of taking all the heat away at once. It would not kill Emo, but then they could catch us.”

Jakes looked doubtful, and then shook his head. “They’d have done it already if they could.

They can’t do that through the walls of another ship.”

“You hope they can’t,” Bob corrected him. “You don’t think you know all the science of Thule, do you?”

“All right,” Jakes suggested. “You bright guys have been raising enough objections to the one thing that’s saving your skins. Now suppose you tell me what you’d do?”

Juan shrugged. “I’d put Emo outside in a space suit Then the ships out there would stop to see whether he was still alive, and to return him to Thule. They might even let us go. But we would have time to get away, and even lose them.”

He had moved up to the screen beside Jakes. “It would give them something to do instead of chasing after us,” he finished.

Jakes snorted. “Yeah. That’s a right fine idea, Juan. There are a thousand ships there, and you think every one would stop, just sit still, and then go back to Thule, if they had the kid.

Nope! One would pick him up. And what was left of us would be dust—nothing but dust Look out there!”

He stood up to see through the port better. Juan hit him with a hard shoulder, knocking him from the control seat, and was in his place at once.

Under his hands, the throttle leaped, throwing more acceleration pressure against them.

Jakes slipped all the way to the floor, sprawling and moaning as the pressure hit him.

“I can raise it higher, Simon,” Juan warned him. “I can raise it until you can no longer stand it.

Or I can let you up to find a space suit for Emo and put him out.”

“You’ll get us killed,” Simon gasped.