"Bradbury, Ray - Pendulum" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bradbury Ray)

PENDULUM
by Ray Bradbury and Henry Hasse


Prisoner of Time was he, outlawed from Life and Death alike the strange,
brooding creature who watched the ages roll by and waited half fearfully
for--eternity?



"I THINK," shrilled Erjas, "that this is our most intriguing discovery on any of
the worlds we have yet visited!"
His wide, green-shimmering wings fluttered, his beady bird eyes flashed
excitement. His several companions bobbed their heads in agreement, the
greenish-gold down on their slender necks ruffling softly. They were perched on
what had once been a moving sidewalk but was now only a twisted ribbon of
wreckage overlooking the vast expanse of a ruined city.
"Yes," Erjas continued, "it's baffling, fantastic! It--it has no reason for
being." He pointed unnecessarily to the object of their attention, resting on
the high stone plaza a short distance away. "Look at it! Just a huge tubular
pendulum hanging from that towering framework! And the machinery, the coggery
which must have once sent it swinging . . . I flew up there a while ago to
examine it, but it's hopelessly corroded."
"But the head of the pendulum!" another of the bird creatures said awedly. "A
hollow chamber--transparent, glassite--and that awful thing staring out of
it...."
Pressed close to the inner side of the pendulum head was a single human
skeleton. The whitened skull seemed to stare out over the desolate, crumbling
city as though regarding with amusement the heaps of powdery masonry and the
bare steel girders that drooped to the ground, giving the effect of huge spiders
poised to spring.

"It's enough to make one shudder--the way that thing grins! Almost as though--"
"The grin means nothing!" Erjas interrupted annoyedly. "That is only the
skeletal remains of one of the mammal creatures who once, undoubtedly, inhabited
this world." He shifted nervously from one spindly leg to the other, as he
glanced again at the grinning skull. "And yet, it does seem to be
almost--triumphant! And why are there no more of them around? Why is he the only
one . . . and why is he encased in that fantastic pendulum head?"
"We shall soon know," another of the bird creatures trilled softly, glancing at
their spaceship which rested amidst the ruins, a short distance away. "Orfleew
is even now deciphering the strange writing in the book he salvaged from the
pendulum head. We must not disturb him."
"How did he get the book? I see no opening in that transparent chamber."
"The long pendulum arm is hollow, apparently in order to vacuum out the cell.
The book was crumbling with age when Orfleew got it out, but he saved most of
it."

"I wish he would hurry! Why must he--"
"Shh! Give him time. Orfleew will decipher the writing; he has an amazing genius