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

much at extrapolation beyond the immediate. Broward would follow him up to a point. Then...
 They came to the entrance to the dome. Only the sound of voices came from it. Together, they stuck their
heads around the side of the entrance. And they saw many dead, some wounded, a few men and women standing
together near the center of the floor. All, except one, were in the variously colored and marked uniforms of the Soviet
Republics. The exception was a tall man in the silver dress uniform of Argentina. His right arm hung limp, and bloody;
his skin was grey.
"Colonel Lorentz," said Scone. "We've one prisoner, at least."
After shouting to those within the dome not to fire, the two walked in. Major Panchurin, the highest-ranking
Russian survivor, lifted a hand to acknowledge their salute. He was too busy talking over the bonephone to say
anything to them. The two examined the dome. The visiting delegation of Axis officers was dead except for Lorentz.
The Russians left standing numbered six; the Chinese, four; the Europeans, one; the Arabic, two; the Indian-East
Asiatic, none. There were four Americans alive. Broward. Scone. Captain Nashdoi. And a badly wounded woman.
Major Hoebel.
Broward walked towards Hoebel to examine her. Before he could do anything the Russian doctor, Titiev, rose
from her side. He said, "I'm sorry, captain. She isn't going to make it."
Broward looked around the dome and made a remark which must, at the time, have seemed irrelevant to Titiev.
"Only three women left. If the ratio is the same on the rest of the Moon, we've a real problem."
Scone had followed Broward. After Titiev had left, and after making sure their bonephones were not on,
Scone said in a low voice, "There were seventy-five Russians stationed here. I doubt if there are over forty left in the
entire base. I wonder how many in Pushkin?"
Pushkin was the base off the other side of the Moon. They walked back to the group around Panchurin and
turned on their phones so they could listen in.
Panchurin's skin paled, his eyes widened, his hands raised protestingly.
"No, no," he moaned out loud.
"What is it?" said Scone, who had heard only the last three words coming in through the device implanted in
his skull.
Panchurin turned a suddenly old face to him. "The commander of the Zemlya said that the Argentineans have
set off an undetermined number of cobalt bombs. More than twenty, at the very least."
He added, "The Zemlya is leaving its orbit. It intends to establish a new one around the Moon. It won't leave
until we evaluate our situation. If then."
Every Soviet in the room looked at Lorentz.
The Argentinean straightened up from his weary slump and summoned all the strength left in his bleeding
body. He spoke in Russian so all would understand.
"We told you pigs we would take the whole world with us before we'd bend our necks to the Communist
yoke!" he shouted.
At that moment, his gaunt high-cheekboned face with its long upper lip, thin lipline mustache, and fanatical
blue eyes made him resemble the dictator of his country, Felipe Howards, El Macho (The Sledgehammer).
Panchurin ordered two soldiers and the doctor to take him to the jail. "I would like to kill the beast now," he
said. "But he may have valuable information. Make sure he lives... for the time being."
Then, Panchurin looked upwards again to Earth, hanging only a little distance above the horizon. The others
also stared.
Earth, dark now, except for steady glares here and there, forest fires and cities, probably, which would burn
for days. Perhaps weeks. Then, when the fires died out, the embers cooled, no more fire. No more vegetation, no more
animals, no more human beings. Not for centuries.
Suddenly, Panchurin's face crumpled, tears flowed, and he began sobbing loudly, rackingly.
The others could not withstand this show of grief. They understood now. The shock had worn off enough to
allow sorrow to have its way. Grief ran through them like fire through the forests of their native homes.
Broward, also weeping, looked at Scone and could not understand. Scone, alone among the men and women
under the dome and the Earth, was not crying. His face was as impassive as the slope of a Moon mountain.
Scone did not wait for Panchurin to master himself, to think clearly. He said, "I request permission to return to