"Philip Jose Farmer - Tongues of the Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

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TONGUES OF THE MOON
Philip Jose Farmer




A PYRAMID BOOK
First printing, August 1964 Second printing, July 1970
This book is fiction. No resemblance is intended between any character herein and any person, living or dead; any such resemblance is
purely coincidental.
Copyright ┬й 1964 by Pyramid Publications
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America
PYRAMID BOOKS are published by Pyramid Publications
A Division of The Walter Reade Organization, Inc.
444 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10022, U.S.A.




FIREFLIES on the dark meadow of Earth... The men and women looking up through the dome in the center of
the crater of Eratosthenes were too stunned to cry out, and some did not understand all at once the meaning of those
pinpoints on the shadowy face of the new Earth, the lights blossoming outwards, then dying. So bright they could be
seen through the cloudmasses covering a large part of Europe. So bright they could be located as London, Paris,
Brussels, Copenhagen, Leningrad, Rome, Reykjavik, Athens, Cairo....
Then, a flare near Moscow that spread out and out and out....
Some in the dome recovered more quickly than others. Scone and Broward, two of the Soviet North American
officers present at the reception in honor of the South Atlantic Axis officers, acted swiftly enough to defend
themselves.
Even as the Axes took off their caps and pulled small automatics and flat bombs from clips within the caps,
the two Americans reached for the guns in their holsters.
Too late to do them much good if the Argentineans and South Africans nearest them had aimed at them. The
Axes had no shock on their faces; they must have known what to expect. And their weapons were firing before the
fastest of the Soviets could reach for the butts of their guns.
But the Axes must have had orders to kill the highest ranking Soviets first. At these the first fire was
concentrated.
Marshal Kosselevsky had half-turned to his guest, Marshal Ramirez-Armstrong. His mouth was open and
working, but no words came from it. Then, his eyes opened even wider as he saw the stubby gun in the Argentinean's
hand. His own hand rose in a defensive, wholly futile, gesture.
Ramirez-Armstrong's gun twanged three times. Other Axes' bullets also struck the Russian. Kosselevsky
clutched at his paunch, and he fell face forward. The .22 calibers did not have much energy to penetrate deeply into
the flesh. But they exploded on impact; they did their work well enough.
Scone and Broward took advantage of not being immediate targets. Guns in hand, they dived for the
protection of a man-tall bank of instruments. Bullets struck the metal cases and exploded, for, in a few seconds, the
Axes had accomplished their primary mission and were now out to complete their secondary.