"Tom Easton - The Bung Hole Caper" - читать интересную книгу автора (Easton Thomas A)

When the voice said, "This," he turned to watch the tentacle sketch a two-inch circle. Fine, he thought.
The saw could handle that. He plugged in the extension cord and fetched his equipment back to the
barrel. "Back off, now," he said. The tentacle withdrew, and he pulled the trigger. The saw bit and
whined, once, twice, and the alien had eye holes. As he sat back on his heels, the eyes appeared. They
were on stalks, and they were extended a good six inches out the holes. "Thank," the alien said. "See,
now." The voice still burbled, but it echoed less. The new holes made a difference.

"Now," said Cyrus. The barrel wasn't really ruined yet. He could always fit a new top to it. But now....
"Where do you want those leg holes?"

Once more the tentacle emerged. It lengthened, more than he would have guessed possible, and it
pointed. The saw whined again, six times, and the job was done. Or was it? Cyrus thought a moment and
said, "You want more room around that arm of yours?" When the tentacle quickly sketched an oblong
around the bung-hole, he obliged.

He rose, put his tools away, and returned. The head of his barrel now reminded him of nothing more than
a Halloween pumpkin, all eyes and mouth, though no pumpkin ever had stalked eyes and a mouthful of
wormy tentacles. No pumpkin had legs either, shiny and lobsterish, emerging from holes in its bottom.
And no pumpkins walked, with a lurching, rocking gait, sideways across the barn floor. It struck him
then, that the aliens resembled hermit crabs, wearing borrowed shells and moving into larger ones as they
grew. He wondered if a real hermit crab might try a pumpkin.

He watched as the alien exercised its limbs. It crawled, it ran, it even capered as it grew used to its new
shell, but it remained clumsy. A barrel just wasn't built to walk. Finally, it settled again, facing Cyrus, and
burbled, "Thank."

Cyrus almost grinned. He prided himself on rarely going into a flap, no matter what the crisis. And he had
a crisis here, for sure. An alien, away from its people, free of its human guides and chauffeurs. It would
have to go back, of course. It would probably want to, unless it preferred a holiday among the natives. In
the meantime, well.... "Mind if I call you Hermit?"

There was no answer. He added, "It's time to talk, you know. Why my barrel?"

The tentacles withdrew. In a moment they returned to scatter a handful of plastic strips on the floor
before the man. The alien money. One tentacle retained a strip and held it up. "Pay. New, shell. Food?"

"Soon," said Cyrus. "But first, why?" Damn, he thought. It's got me doing it too. Though it's not hard. We
do talk that way here, a bit.

"Found, first." The alien's burble was somehow plaintive. "Hungry." Cyrus said nothing. After a moment,
the alien went on. "Grow, we. Shells, change, always. Small, natural. Bigger, smarter, plastic. Change,
must. Too-weak, not. Too-soft."

Cyrus stared intently, thinking beginning to see.... He was interrupted by a gasp. He turned, and there
was Allie, a hand to her mouth, an apron around her waist. "I wanted the eggs," she said. "What's that?"

He told her. She scooched beside him, staring too. "They grow all their lives," he said. "Move into bigger
shells as they grow. It says they get smarter too. I guess the brain must get bigger as they grow."