"Bradbury, Ray - Sound of Thunder, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bradbury Ray)

Billings and Kramer sat on the pathway and threw up.
Travis and Lesperance stood with smoking rifles, cursing
steadily.
In the Time Machine, on his face, Eckels lay shivering.
He had found his way back to the Path, climbed into the
Machine.
Travis came walking, glanced at Eckels, took cotton
gauze from a metal box, and returned to the others, who
were sitting on the Path.
"Clean up."
They wiped the blood from their helmets. They began
to curse too. The Monster lay, a hill of solid flesh. Within,
you could hear the sighs and murmurs as the furthest
chambers of it died, the organs malfunctioning, liquids running
a final instant from pocket to sac to spleen, everything
shutting off, closing up forever. It was like standing by a
wrecked locomotive or a steam shovel at quitting time, all
valves being released or levered tight. Bones cracked; the
tonnage of its own flesh, off balance, dead weight, snapped
the delicate forearms, caught underneath. The meat settled,
quivering.
Another cracking sound. Overhead, a gigantic tree branch
broke from its heavy mooring, fell. It crashed upon the
dead beast with finality.
"There." Lesperance checked his watch. "Right on time.
That's the giant tree that was scheduled to fall and kill
this animal originally." He glanced at the two hunters.
"You want the trophy picture?"
"What?"
"We can't take a trophy back to the Future. The body
has to stay right here where it would have died originally,
so the insects, birds, and bacteria can get at it, as they were
intended to. Everything in balance. The body stays. But
we can take a picture of you standing near it."
The two men tried to think, but gave up, shaking their
heads.
They let themselves be led along the metal Path. They
sank wearily into the Machine cushions. They gazed back
at the ruined Monster, the stagnating mound, where already
strange reptilian birds and golden insects were busy at the
steaming armour.
A sound on the floor of the Time Machine stiffened them.
Eckels sat there, shivering.
"I'm sorry," he said at last.
"Get up!" cried Travis.
Eckels got up.
"Go out on that Path alone," said Travis. He had his rifle
pointed. "You're not coming back in the Machine. We're
leaving you here!"
Lesperance seized Travis' arm. "Wait"