"Anderson, Poul - For Love and Glory" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anderson Poul)

It has turned out independent indeed. The concept of several intelligent spacefaring species, who come upon relics of unknown predecessors, is still there, but that is scarcely unique in our literature. Otherwise little remains except that pair of episodes, much altered. To avoid conflict with anything in the original series or constraining any future volumes, the history, the races involved, the individual characters, most place names, and the general course of events have all been changed. This tale stands entirely on its own.
Still, I wish to acknowledge my debt to Isaac, Janet, and Marty.
ЧPOUL ANDERSON
I
AT first sight Lissa thought it was an islandЧa strange one, yes, but this whole world was strange to her. Then as she and Karl came out of the woodland and went on toward the river, she knew it could not be. It lay in midstream, dully iridescent, about twenty meters long, perhaps a fourth as wide, curving up to a gently rounded top one meter or so above the water. Someone or something had made it.
But there were no native sophonts anywhere around this star. Scant though exploration had been in the seven Terran years since the system was first visited, that much was certain.
So who, and when, and why?
She halted. УWhat the chaos? Have you any idea what that might be?Ф
Karl stopped too. УNone,Ф he said. УI do not recall any such artifact from my experience or other sources of information. A slight resemblance to some dwellings of the Orcelin civilization.Ф The tip of his tail gestured at the camp near the shore. УObviously it is not the work of yonder persons. I presume they are studying it. They may have learned something.Ф
The translator clinging to LissaТs backpack rendered his answer into flat-voiced Anglay. He could follow her words readily enough. If he had tried to utter them the result would have been grotesque. For her part, she could not hear most of his language, let alone pronounce those trills, whistles, and supersonic melodies. Once it had struck her funny that such a huge creature should have so thin a voice. But that was in her silly girlhood. She had since met beings much more paradoxical and less comprehensible, and learned that to them humans were likewise.
[12] She did still sometimes wonder whether KarlЧher name for him, honoring a friend at homeЧreally spoke as academically as the device rendered it. He was a scientist, but also a top-class waymate. Yet she would never understand the nuances of his personality, nor he hers. They could never be more than comrades.
УLetТs have a better look.Ф She unsheathed her optic, raised it to her eyes, and activated it. His keener vision had already made out what she now did. The surface was not actually smooth, it was subtly, bewilderingly complex. Increasing the magnification gave small help. Noontide shadows were too short to bring out enough relief.
The idea struck her like a fist. Her hands dropped. УForerunner work?Ф she cried.
Amidst the tumult in her head she felt that the translatorТs level tone was, for once, conveying an emotion. Calm. УI immediately suspected so.Ф Somebody with KarlТs size and strength might not be very excitable. Interested, yes; delighted, maybe; but free of the chills that ran up her spine, out to the ends of her fingers.
Steadiness returned. She lifted the optic again.
Two beings poised on the thing, with a variety of instruments set forth. One was a male human, the other an anthropard from Rikha or a Rikhan colony. She watched them come to full alertness, peer her way, and hasten down the whaleback curve. Their boat lay alongside, tethered by a geckofoot grapnel. They got in, cast off, and motored toward the land.
Lissa swung her gaze about and found their camp, which from here was half screened by brush. She put her optic back.
УDo you recognize either of them?Ф asked Karl.
УNo,Ф she said, Уnor why they havenТt been in touch.Ф She scowled as she started off again. УWeТll find out. WeТd better.Ф
The camp amounted to three dome shelters. But the vehicle standing by was no ordinary flyer adapted for this planet. Twice the size, it was clearly capable not simply of flitting through atmosphere, hovering, vertical landings and takeoffs, but of making [13] orbit. Indeed, when last she and Karl heard from headquarters, personnel had detected a small spaceship circling farther out than theirs in a sharply canted plane. Apparently those who had been aboard would rather not be noticed.
Otherwise the landscape lay primeval, hills rolling low in the east and on either side of the valley, thickly wooded. The vegetation was unlike any she knew of anywhere else, curiously shaped boles and boughs, foliage in shades of dark yellow and brown, eerie blossomsЧanother world, after all. Animal life was as alien and as abundant; the sky was full of wings and clamor. The fundamental biochemistry resembled hers in a number of ways, and the basis of life itself was microbial here too. But that was due to the working of the same natural laws on more or less Earthlike planets. How many centuries until the biology of even this single continent would be even sketchily charted?
Depends partly on how much of an effort scientifically oriented sophonts feel is worth making, passed banally through her mind. The galaxyТs so huge, so various, and always so mysterious.
Odd, how high and steep the riverbanks were. In fact, it flowed at the bottom of a rocky canyon. Farther inland, its sides were low, begrown to the very edge of the water. Only as she neared did she see that here the stream had broadened to almost a kilometer.
She reviewed the local geography as scanned by a satellite. Flowing westward, the river became wider still. Fifty kilometers hence its estuary was salt marshland. There it emptied into a channel that in turn led to an ocean.
Evidently local topography had made it cut this gorge. HadnТt that taken time on a geological scale? But the rock wasnТt wind-sculpted, merely littered with boulders where ledges and cracks offered resting places.
Nor was the ground above richly forested, like upstream. A strip of thin, poor, rocky soil reached back some fifty meters from either verge. Tough-looking, deep-rooted little bushes stood sparsely, interspersed with lesser plants that she guessed were [14] evanescent opportunists. She saw just a few tiny animals scuttering between, though winged creatures continued plentiful. The camp was at the edge of the semi-desert, half surrounded by fairly large shrubs, trees behind it.
One of countless puzzles. ... At the moment, she had too much else to think about. Surely in due course somebody would reason this out.
She eased her pace. In spite of a noticeably denser atmosphere and higher partial pressure of oxygen, in spite of her being in athletic condition and having trained beforehand, a surface gravity fifteen percent above Earth normal added nine kilos to her weight.
Karl slowed to match her. By his standards, he was taking baby steps. Carrying nearly all their field equipment on his back, as well as his own mass, he seemed to move effortlessly.
With him at her side sheТd scarcely need the pistol at her hip. Not that she supposed the pair ahead of her had violent intentions. Still, however mild-mannered, Karl was bound to be a trifle overawing. Looming a meter above her, he was not wholly unlike a, well, a tyrannosaur. Longer arms, yes, and four-fingered hands; short muzzle, big green eyes, tall ears, gray skin; the taloned feet bare rather than booted. His many-pocketed coverall resembled hers, though open in back for a formidable tail.
The air had cooled, while keeping a medley of odors, sweet, pungent, acid, sulfury. Wind boomed from the west, where clouds lifted massive. Their hollows were dark blue, their heights amber, against a sky almost purple. The sun brooded overhead, two and a fourth times the size of Sol seen from Earth. To the human eye, an M0 dwarf is pale yellow, and you can look straight at it for a moment without being blinded. To Lissa, the summer light recalled autumn at home.
And the noontide would last and last. This planet orbited close in, with a two-thirds rotational lock. A hundred and twenty-three of EarthТs days would pass before noon came back.
[15] She thrust her stray thoughts aside. The man and his partner had reached a wooden dock that a robotЧthey must have one or two alongЧhad doubtless constructed, and were debarking. In a few minutes sheТd meet them.
II
THE spot was about halfway between. All four halted. For an instant only the wind spoke.
After an appraising look, the man apparently decided that Anglay was their likeliest common language. УGreeting, my lady, sir.Ф She didnТt recognize his accent. The voice was resonant, though she guessed from it that he couldnТt carry a tune if it had handles. УWelcome. Maybe.Ф He added the last word with a grin. She suspected it was not entirely in jest.
УThank you,Ф she replied. Her glance searched him. He stood tall in his rough garb, thick-shouldered, slender-hipped. The head was round, the face blunt, blue-eyed, weatherbeaten; a stubble of beard showed he hadnТt bothered lately with depilatory. The light-brown hair grew a bit thin on top but peeked abundantly from under collar and sleeves. By no means unattractive, she thought. УIТm Lissa Davysdaughter Windholm of AsborgЧSunniva III. My companionТs name for human purposes is Karl.Ф
УWhat language does he prefer? I know a few.Ф
УHis own. The dominant one on Gargantua,Ф as humans called the mother planet of that race, a back formation from their name for the race itself. УHe understands us quite well.Ф
УWeТd like to understand him, though, wouldnТt we?Ф
УShouldnТt my translator be set for that?Ф
He laughed. УA touch, my lady! Well, IТm Torben Hebo. My partner is Dzesi, from her native world.Ф
The other made a gesture involving her knife. УS-s-su alach.Ф She switched to Anglay. Her species could render human sounds fairly well, with hissing overtones and an underlying growl. УPeace [17] between us, Lissa Windholm and Karl Gargantuan.Ф
УPeace in truth, Dzesi,Ф Karl answered through the device. УI request knowledge of your origins, that we may address you in seemly wise.Ф
Lissa realized, startled, that he had some familiarity with RikhansЧmust have had dealings, probably scientific. Fortunate! Her acquaintance was minimal, almost entirely from what she had learned in school and from occasional anecdotes. They were said to be innately proud and touchy.
The anthropardТs eerily humanlike mouth made a smile, baring pointed reddish teeth. Otherwise the visage, with its slit-pupilled amber eyes, flat single-nostrilled nose, upstanding tufted ears, and long cilia, suggested a cat more than anything else. The body, nude except for orange-hued, black-spotted fur and a belt holding two pouches and the knife, was also not unlike LissaТs, in a huge-chested, breastless, wasp-waisted fashion. The long legs brought the height to about the same as the manТs.
УYes-s,Ф she said. УI am of the Ulas Trek in Ghazu.Ф
УIn honor,Ф Karl responded.
УAccepted and offered.Ф
Lissa turned to Hebo. УBut where are you from, sir, and whatТs your allegiance?Ф