"Brown, Fredric - Arena UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brown Fredric)

Inside his head he heard it, not with his ears. It came from nowhere or everywhere.
СThrough spaces and dimensions wandering,Т rang the words in his mind, Сand in this space and this time, I find two peoples about to exterminate one and so weaken the other that it would retrogress and never fulfil its destiny, but decay and return to mindless dust whence it came. And I say this must not happen.Т
СWho ... what are you?Т Carson didnТt say it aloud, but the question formed itself in his brain.
СYou would not understand completely. I am Ч СThere was a pause as though the voice sought Ч in CarsonТs brain Ч for a word that wasnТt there, a word he didnТt know. СI am the end of evolution of a race so old the time cannot be expressed in words that have meaning to your mind. A race fused into a single entity, eternal.
СAn entity such as your primitive race might becomeТ Ч again the groping for a word Ч Сtime from now. So might the race you call, in your mind, the Outsiders. So I intervene in the battle to come, the battle between fleets so evenly matched that destruction of both races will result. One must survive. One must progress and evolve.Т
СOne?Т thought Carson. СMine or
СIt is in my power to stop the war, to send the Outsiders back to their galaxy. But they would return, or your race would sooner or later follow them there. Only by remaining in this space and time to intervene constantly could I prevent them from destroying one another, and I cannot remain.
СSo I shall intervene now. I shall destroy one fleet completely without loss to the other. One civilization shall thus survive.Т
Nightmare. This had to be nightmare, Carson thought. But he knew it wasnТt.
It was too mad, too impossible, to be anything but real.
He didnТt dare ask the question Ч which? But his thoughts asked it for him.
СThe stronger shall survive,Т said the voice. СThat I cannot Ч and would not Ч change. I merely intervene to make it a complete victory, notТ Ч groping again Ч Сnot Pyrrhic victory to a broken race.
СFrom the outskirts of the not-yet battle I plucked two individuals, you and an Outsider. I see from your mind that, in your early history of nationalisms, battles
between champions to decide issues between races were not unknown.
СYou and your opponent are here pitted against one another, naked and unarmed, under conditions equally unfamiliar to you both, equally unpleasant to you both. There is no time limit, for here there is no time. The survivor is the champion of his race. That race survives.Т
СBut ЧС CarsonТs protest was too inarticulate for expression, but the voice answered it.
СIt is fair. The conditions are such that the accident of physical strength will not completely decide the issue. There is a barrier. You will understand. Brain-power and courage will be more important than strength. Most especially courage, which is the will to survive.Т
СBut while this goes on, the fleets willЧТ
СNo, you are in another space, another time. For as long as you are here, time stands still in the universe you know. I see you wonder whether this place is real. It is, and it is not. As I Ч to your limited understanding Ч am and am not real. My existence is mental and not physical. You saw me as a planet; it could have been as a dust-mote or a sun.
СBut to you this place is now real. Whatyou suffer here will be real. And ~fyou die here,your death will be real. Ifyou die,your failure will be the end ofyour race. That is enough for you to know.Т
And then the voice was gone.

Again he was alone, but not alone. For as Carson looked up, he saw that the red thing, the sphere of horror that he now knew was the Outsider, was rolling towards him.
Rolling.
It seemed to have no legs or arms that he could see, no features. It rolled across the sand with the fluid quickness of a drop of mercury. And before it, in some manner he could not understand, came a wave of nauseating hatred.
Carson looked about him frantically. A stone, lying in the sand a few feet away, was the nearest thing to a weapon. It wasnТt large, but it had sharp edges, like a slab of flint. It looked a bit like blue flint.
He picked it up, and crouched to receive the attack. It was coming fast, faster than he could run.
No time to think out how he was going to fight it; how anyway could he plan to battle a creature whose strength, whose characteristics, whose method of fighting he did not know? Rolling so fast, it looked more than ever like a perfect sphere.
Ten yards away. Five. And then it stopped.
Rather, it was stopped. Abruptly the near side of it flattened as though it had run up against an invisible wall. It bounced, actually bounced back.
Then it rolled forward again, but more cautiously. It stopped again, at the same place. it tried again, a few yards to one side.
Then it rolled forward again, but more cautiously. It stopped again, at the same place. It tried again, a few yards to one side.
There was a barrier there of some sort. It clicked, then, in CarsonТs mind, that thought projected by the Entity who had brought them there:
Ч accident of physical strength will not completely decide the issue. There is a barrier.Т
A force-field, of course. Not the Netzian Field, known to Earth science, for that glowed and emitted a crackling sound. This one was invisible, silent.
It was a wall that ran from side to side of the inverted hemisphere; Carson didnТt have to verify that himself. The Roller was doing that, rolling sideways along the barrier, seeking a break in it that wasnТt there.
Carson took half a dozen steps forward, his left hand groping out before him, and touched the barrier. It felt smooth, yielding, like a sheet of rubber rather than like glass, warm to his touch, but no warmer than the sand underfoot. And it was completely invisible, even at close range.
He dropped the stone and put both hands against it, pushing. It seemed to yield, just a trifle, but no farther than that trifle, even when he pushed with all his weight. It felt like a sheet of rubber backed up by steel. Limited resiliency, and then firm strength.
He stood on tiptoe and reached as high as he could and the barrier was still there.
He saw the Roller coming back, having reached one side of the arena. That feeling of nausea hit Carson again, and he stepped back from the barrier as it went by. It didnТt stop.
But did the barrier stop at ground-level? Carson knelt down and burrowed in the sand; it was soft, light, easy to dig in. And two feet down the barrier was still there.
The Roller was coming back again. Obviously, it couldnТt find a way through at either side.
There must be a way through, Carson thought, or else this duel is meaningless. -
The Roller was back now, and it stopped just across the barrier, only six feet away. It seemed to be studying him although, for the life of him, Carson couldnТt find external evidence of sense organs on the thing. Nothing that looked like eyes or ears, or even a mouth. There was though, he observed, a series of grooves, perhaps a dozen of them altogether, and he saw two tentacles push out from two of the grooves and dip into the sand as though testing its consistency. These were about an inch in diameter and perhaps a foot and a half long.
The tentacles were retractable into the grooves and were kept there except when in use. They retracted when the thing rolled and seemed to have nothing to do with its method of locomotion; that, as far as Carson could judge, seemed to be accomplished by some shifting Ч just how he
couldnТt imagine Ч of its centre of gravity.
He shuddered as he looked at the thing. It was alien, horribly different from anything on Earth or any of the life forms found on the other solar planets. Instinctively, he knew its mind was as alien as its body.
If it could project that almost tangible wave of hatred, perhaps it could read his mind as well, sufficiently for his purpose.
Deliberately, Carson picked up the rock that had been his only weapon, then tossed it down again in a gesture of relinquishment and raised his empty hands, palms up, before him.
He spoke aloud, knowing that although the words would be meaningless to the creature before him, speaking them would focus his own thoughts more completely upon the message.