"Campbell, John W Jr - The Immortality_Seekers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Campbell John W Jr)

remarkable faculty for phonographic-or telepathic-recording."
He turned aside to Penton.
"I think I know how Pipeline works. His mind, I mean. Whenever we think of something, he broadcasts all he has ever heard pertaining to that subject. He's like an intelligent phonograph record-doesn't know where to stop or begin."
"Live on borax," chortled Pipeline pleasantly. "Borax necessary for this peculiar form of life ... This specimen I have obtained from the watchman of a local warehouse, who reports that it was given to him, together with its mate, by a sailor returning from Stakquerl . . . The dissections have demonstrated the remarkable anatomy of this beast, which, unlike other life-forms, bases its fundamental life chemistry on fifty pounds of borax in the ship.
"This type of life occurs in only that one region of our planet, and is quite common there, being represented by a complete type of evolution. This is its highest representative, capable of receiving telepathic impressions direct from the mind of one man, and regenerating those thoughts in the mind of another, while only to a very limited extent understanding the material so repeated . . . It's a mind-reading, broadcasting pooch that came because it smelled borax . . . More borax?"
"Man, what a college education you got somewhere, even if you did get it a little mixed up. So you have a girlfriend, eh?"
"Girlfriend of my own." Pipeline sat down suddenly with the last two sets of legs, and stood up in front. Then lugubriously the animal lay down with the front legs, and stood up in back, while remaining seated in the middle. "No girlfriend of my own . . . But I have Thkrub ..."
"Oh, I begin to understand. I suspect you have it the wrong way around, Ted. This is the female of the species," Blake derided.
"Female of the species bears from fifteen to fifty young at a time; the mating season is practically continuous . . . The male and female mate for life, and at practically any time
that fifty pounds of borax in the ship is available young are produced . . . The lack of more borax alone prevents this extremely fecund species from overrunning the planet . . . They have, you observe, a series of exceedingly powerful molars, capable, in fact, of crushing minerals for digestion . . . The animal is capable of ingesting and utilizing inorganic boron . . . Let's visit the ship . . . They supply their energy needs, however, from the combustion of carbon compounds, as we do, being omnivorous ia this respect .' . . They make highly entertaining pets where the owner can fiad or procure the expensive boron compounds necessary for their life."
"Brief Me history. I bet Pipeline-or is it Pipeliness-has heard that lecture a dozen times. Can you suggest a way of turning her off?"
"Turn me off, that's it... After all these years I've slaved to help you, slaved for your children, scrimped and saved so that you could have a good time, you brute . . . Now you turn me off for some flighty, giddy-headed-more boraxP'
"No, Pipeliness, no family quarrels. You'll get borax when we get to the ship. And then only if you stay quiet until we arrive, or we ask questions. Where's your mate, Pipeliness?"
For an animal born of a small world, Pipeliness could develop speed. Penton thought this time of a male mate, and Pipeliness went to fetch him. Before either Blake or Penton could move, the animal had vanished with a soft scurry of claws.
W STRAGATH
To NEVER HAVE suspected speed like that in such short legs," said Blake softly. "Do you think she'll be back?"
"More borax," sighed Penton. "Fifty pounds of borax in the ship. Man, you couldn't lose that critter now to save you. All the repressed mother-love of the last five years or so is
probably welling up in her under-slung bosom. I image, from the lecture she just delivered, that friend watchman of the domestic difficulties can't feed her the boron she wants, and evidently she needs a sufficient supply of boron to have young. At any rate I need a supply of carbon compounds. She interrupted my eating rather abruptly."
"There seems to be enough jellyfruit here to keep any two people going. Tastes funny, doesn't it? Rather like a cross between orange juice and beef gravy, unpleasant as that sounds."
"It sounds omnivorous, but isn't," Penton objected. "I have a curious desire to consume some sort of meat food. They must have some kind of-what ho! They have. Or at least that certainly looks like a local substitute for the old, familiar of seashore, quick lunches."
Blake looked at the contents of the case Penton indicated. Like the one they had first raided, it was addressed to a wholesale grocer, but this contained some item that closely resembled a seven-inch hot dog.
"Even their hot dogs are skinny. Sort of in proportion," Blake pointed out. "The thing's only half as thick as it should be, and half again as long."
Penton was quietly carving at the boards of the case. Delicately he reached in, and pulled out one of the things. His brow furrowed in deep thought.
"I know what these darned things are, but for the life of me, I can't recall the name, nor the properties. I wasn't trying to learn foods when I read Tha Lagth's mind. Yes- they're food, all right. I remember that much-seems I remember eating them as is. Well here goes!"
Penton put a very small portion of the Callistan delicacy in his mouth, and bit on it gently. Blake stared. Abruptly, Penton's face froze in an expression of horrified surprise, his eyebrows climbed frantically to join his hair, then his eyes popped very wide open. He sat in frozen astonishment, while the right eyebrow slid slowly downward, and a slow, dawning comprehension spread over him. His hand, gripping the strange food, gripped tighter, and he swallowed,
while his eyes closed desperately. Very slowly his Adam's apple crawled: up, took hold, and slid down his windpipe with a special delivery package for his stomach.
His eyes opened, and he looked at Blake. A beatific smile spread over his face. The remainder of the thing vanished in three large gulps. Penton sat very still for a moment, as though concentrating on inner voices of surpassing beauty. Finally he looked again at Blake.
"Remarkable," he said in a falsetto voice. "Er-eh, 1 mean remarkable. You must try one." He pulled forth another and handed it to Blake.
Rod Blake looked at him with deep suspicion. "Judging from the struggle you went through," he said at length, "I don't know that I'm so keen on it. Just what, my friend, was the matter with you?"
"I-I was trying to remember it. For a moment I thought I had. You see, there's a thing called stragth that is a kind of red sea worm, very poisonous; it stings. These are stragath, popularly so-called because they somewhat resemble that worm. Oh, they aren't, of course, but that's what had me scared. Try it-it's really delicious."
Blake took the thing in two fingers, very cautiously. Very cautiously, he put his teeth to a minute scrap and bit-Instantly he dropped .the thing, and jumped up. It curled violently in his grip; a thin, squealing wail of anger chattered from it through his teeth. Violently the far end of it curled up to swipe forcefully against his nose. Squealing angrily, it flopped about on the floor as Blake looked at it in undisguised horror.
Smilingly, Penton reached out and pinched the far end. It lay still-and almost simultaneously disappeared as Pipe-liness darted through the crack by which she had entered before, to gobble it down in a single motion.
"More stragath?" she asked brightly. "More stragath for Thkrub?"
Behind her a somewhat larger edition scurried in, to sniff in a friendly fashion at Penton, with a wagging, silky tail.
Violet eyes in a broad, mahogany-brown head looked up at him.
"Borax," said the newcomer.
Penton fished another stragath out of the crate, and tossed it toward the animal. "I take it you are-well, Pipeline. We won't attempt that name of yours." The bit of food was caught expertly, and vanished instantly.
"Fifty pounds of borax in the ship . . . Let's visit the ship," suggested Pipeline, not to be swayed from an important purpose.
"Let's change the tune, Pipeline. We have about ten kilograms of boric acid, too."
"Ten kilograms of boric acid. Let's visit the ship." Pipeli-ness danced happily. Abruptly her nose went up, and she trotted over to the case.
"I wondered how she made those six legs work together," Blake sighed. "Every time she's moved before, she's gone so fast they just blurred. I'm beginning to get it."
"This animal," Pipeline stated, dogmatically, following his mate, "is as are all members of this system of evolution, equipped with six pedal members . . . These six limbs are normally operated in the manner of a pacer, those on one side moving in unison . . . However, some members of the species vary this gait in almost any possible combination . . . Very good stragath."
Pipeliness sat down on her rearmost legs, on her middle legs stood up, and reached up the case with her forelegs. Long, retractile claws reached out and with an expert flip she snared a stragath. The thing shot through the air to be snapped up instantly by her mate. Five more followed in machine gun-like succession before she sent a stream toward her own swift-acting jaws.
"Efficient, Pipeliness, efficient. Gould you send some our way?" suggested Penton. The animal glanced at him, her tail wagged briefly, and almost immediately Penton was bombarded by a rapid-fire stream of arriving stragath. Not quite as quick as the animals, he failed to catch all of them, and several fell to the floor. They squeaked instantly, dou-
bled themselves the instant they hit the ground with an amazing vigor. They bounced into the air to strike hollowly against the crates above. Long before they hit the floor again, Pipeline solved the difficulty by consuming them.
Pipeliness turned violet eyes on Penton.
"Penton want stragath?" she asked. There was a distinct note of reproach in her communication. Penton juggled frantically with suddenly animated stragath, while Blake grappled with two he had caught.
"What in blazes are these? Are they food or are they animals?" The angry squawling squeak of the things was mounting rapidly as they became thoroughly aroused. Blake dropped his load to the silencing, and waiting Pipeline.
"Stragath," Pipeline said, "the latest triumph of modern science. . . . These remarkable growths are developed by the magnificent cooperation of thousands of research workers. . . . I'll bet they ain't got a dozen and the damn things probably aren't fit to eat. . . . Research workers combine in the ultimately perfect proportions every item of diet needed by man. . . . Most important of all, the stragath soon to be marketed by Thrail Stran and Company will bring to you in delicious form these important elements in living, vital form. . . . These advertising humbugs make me sick. ... I hear the damn things are alive enough so that when you jar them too much they start moving. . . . Swell time I'll have with them chasing all around that blasted blistering warehouse. . . . May be eaten as they naturally occur. ... At low temperatures they may be kept indefinitely without spoilage since they are liviing and hence destroy all destructive molds or bacteria. . . . They won't smell anyway, maybe; well, you won't bring any of those things into my house, Grag Kuolp."
Penton sighed and sat down. He had finally succeeded in pulling Pipeliness away from the hole in the crate and had seated himself in front of it. The last of the visible stragath had been consumed, but still there was a persistent, faint squawling.