"Alan Dean Foster - Humanx 5 - Sentenced To Prism" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

to
roll a couple of meters to his right, beneath the torus of a cascalarian. A
tiny
triumph, a very minor achievement, but it made him feel a little better.
The cascalarian occupied the same ecological niche on Prism as a shade tree on
Earth or Samstead, but it was not properly a tree. It possessed neither leaves
nor chloro-phyll. The tripartite central trunk was three meters high. From
there
stiff spines grew parallel to the ground. There supported a transparent glassy
torus which was filled, with a great variety of life, some of it motile, ail
of
it part of the parent growth. It reminded Evan of an imploded Christmas tree.
Everything grew toward the central trunk and the cen-ter of the torus. There
was
no outward expansion. Competition for living space within the torus was fierce
and constant, yet all of it was part of the cascalarian's own closed system.
The
various shapes were competing for food. Which was to say, for sunlight. Like
the
majority of lifeforms on Prism, the cascalarian was a photovore.
The thin outer shell of the torus magnified the sunlight falling on it. Within
the protective magnifying shell the internal lifeforms were colored lapis blue
and aquamarine. Here and there a few patches of royal blue‑something
twisted and
throve. There were also unhealthy‑looking patches of pink sponge, but
they were
rare.
The cascalarian was an organosdicate structure, as were most of the dominant
lifeforms on Prism, for it was a world based as much on silicon as carbon. A
world of glass, beauty, and confusion.
No matter. Shade was shade, he mused.
Icy turning his head he could look down at the stream. The cool, pure,
fast‑running stream that could save his life, if he could get to it. The
stream
was alive with snow-flakes. Twenty of them would fit easily in the palm of his
hand.
Snowflakes had tiny transparent legs which ended in broad fiat pads. Attached
to
their backs was a single curved sail about the size of a thumbnail. They
congregated where the water was still, partying on the surface tension. As the
sun rose or fell they adjusted their stance to receive as much of its light as
possible, crowding and shoving each other for the best place. Each
photoreceptive sail was a different metallic color: carmine red, cobalt blue,
deep purple, emerald green. A pair of tiny crystalline eyes marked the
location
of each head, and the eyes were colored the same intense hue as their owner's
sail.
Powered by Prism's sun, the creatures dashed silently back and forth across
the
water, using tiny vacuuming mouths to suck up the mineral‑rich