"Aldiss, Brian - Saliva Tree, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Aldiss Brian W)

wonderful and fantastic as something from your novel, "The
Time Machine."
Pray give me your comment, and trust in my sanity and
accuracy as a reporter!
Yours in friendship,
Gregory Rolles.
What he did not tell was the way Nancy had clung to him
after, in the warmth of the parlor, and confessed her fear. And
he had scorned the idea that these beings could be hostile, and
had seen the admiration in her eyes, and had thought that she
was, after all, a dashed pretty girl, and perhaps worth braving
the wrath of those two very different people for: Edward
Rolles, his father, and Bert Neckland, the farm laborer.
It was at lunch a week later, when Gregory was again at the
farm, taking with him an article on electricity as a pretext for
his visit, that the subject of the stinking dew was first discussed.
Grubby was the first to mention it in Gregory's hearing.
Grubby, with Bert Neckland, formed the whole strength of
Joseph Grendon's labor force; but whereas Neckland was
considered couth enough to board in the farmhouse (he had a
gaunt room in the attic), Grubby was fit only to sleep in a little
flint-and-chalk hut well away from the farm buildings. His
"house," as he dignified the miserable hut, stood below the
orchard and near the sties, the occupants of which lulled
Grubby to sleep with their snorts.
"Reckon we ent ever had a dew like that before, Mr.
Grendon," he said, his manner suggesting to Gregory that he
had made this observation already this morning; Grubby never
ventured to say anything original.
"Heavy as an autumn dew," said the farmer firmly, as if there
had been an argument on the point.
Silence fell, broken only by a general munching and, from
Grubby, a particular guzzling, as they all made their way
through huge platefuls of stewed rabbit and dumplings.
"It weren't no ordinary dew, that I do know," Grubby said
after a while.
"It stank of toadstools," Neckland said. "Or rotten pond
water."
More munching.
"It may be something to do with the pond," Gregory said.
"Some sort of freak of evaporation."
Neckland snorted. From his position at the top of the table,
. the farmer halted his shovelling operations to point a fork at
Gregory.
"You may well be right there. Because I tell you what, that
there dew only come down on our land and property. A yard
the other side of the gate, the road was dry. Bone dry it was."
"Right you are there, master," Neckland agreed. "And while
the West Field was dripping with the stuff, I saw for myself
that the bracken over the hedge weren't wet at all. Ah, it's a