"Raymond Z. Gallun - Blue Haze on Pluto" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gallun Raymond Z)

more than the jagged monsters that crowded around him opposing his passage. Something he
remembered was responsible. On Tethys, third satellite of Saturn, there was a haze like that. It was
gaseous, corrosive, alive; it ate through metal and glass and flesh, like an acid. This world was a worse
hell even than Tethys. Might not there be a still more dreadful haze here, then? The idea made Terry's
pulses quicken with the dread of the unknown.
Yet he was angryтАФangry at himself for his inexperience, angry at Pindar for being so elusive, angry
that Pindar had ever been built, angry at the oppressive weight of his burden, angry at almost everything.
What had Earthmen come to this God-forsaken piece of the universe for? Only because radium and
actinium could be obtained here in large quantities. Radium and actinium to feed their damned machines !
Young Sommers cursed with the fogged vehemence of a drunken man. His lips pouted like a vexed
child's.
Mingled with his resentments, fears were bright, fragmentary bits of his past, jumbled into a
patternless medley: Some one named George. Some one called Ellane. Who was she? Oh yes, the girl
who had danced at Vananis, the Earth settlement on Mars. Blond, sweet, really beautiful Endless
wanderings, here and there, on this planet and that Rocket ships, baggage tags, costumes, jokes, jingles
of music, gay, tragicтАФ MarsтАФthe cultivated lands roofed with glass to keep them warm; machines to
free the oxygen from the red ferric oxides of the soil. Silk tapestries, carved stone pillars, friendly
shadows. And warmthтАФdamn it!тАФwarmth! Trouper, clownтАФbits of tawdry tinselтАФhell!
VenusтАФterrifically hot and fiercely cold, but never as cold as the mildest day on Pluto. Io, Ganymede,
Callisto. The Rings of SaturnтАФThe domed Earth colonies everywhere. Why?
A feeble movement in his burden aroused young Sommers a trifle and made him remember the
Venusian he carried. Terry was angry because he was there. "Little fool!" he mumbled several times.
"Little useless fool!"
One of those clouds of blue haze was shifting closer in what seemed stealth. But it was all so
indistinct and illusive. Terry stumbled on a crystal thing, recovered himself, and then kicked it with
vengeful force. But he was reeling. A few steps more and he would be down.
Again the Venusian moved. Then he voiced a piercing scream that even his mask could not muffle
effectively. It sounded like the cry of a terror-stricken demon. Once more he sent that unEarthly yell of
his echoing into the night.
Terry was furious. "Stop that!" he growled dully. "Stop! Do you want us to be devoured? If you're
scared, keep still anyway!"
However, if the tiny fellow understood his command, he did not obey. Again he screamed.
Clumsily Sommers aimed a blow at him. His hand, numb and wooden, fell glancingly; the Venusian
strapped to his hip, crumpled.
Then Terry tried to dodge up a gorge, inspired by some dim hope of eluding the haze. He saw that it
was useless. The shrill vibrations of the yells had impinged upon some sensory faculty which those clouds
of gaseous life possessed. They were sweeping toward him from all sides. And the fog of
unconsciousness, produced by the cold, was thickening in his brain. He saw sinuous, fiery shapes of
vapor squirm and wriggle in the air about him. And there were things that looked like the carved heads of
devils, animated.
With a last spurt of energy he fought through the thicket of frost monsters around him, and reached
the summit of a knoll. His body swayed, sagged; he toppled in a heap amid glassy fragments.
Was that Pindar he had glimpsed on a lofty plateau several miles ahead? Or had he only imagined
that he had seen a great crystal dome ribbed with metal, glowing like the domes of all colonial cities? It
didn't matter now. The city was out of reach. It had always been out of reach. It was not worth bothering
about. He was very comfortable here.
The blue clouds converged upon him. Sinuous wisps of vapor touched him. He felt the first electrical
tingle of their caress as they began to eat into his partovac. Corrosive death! Funny he wasn't impressed.
Mingling with the hiss of the oxygen valve in his mask was a hypnotic whisper and crackle like that of an
aurora.