"Edmond Hamilton - Captain Future 23 - The Harpers of Titan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Edmond)

The HARPERS of
TITAN
A Captain Future NOVELET by EDMOND HAMILTON
Again Simon Wright, the "Brain", lives in a human body, and in that guise contends
with the most hideous peril he has ever faced--a menace driving a planet to madness!
CHAPTER I
Shadowed Moon
His name was Simon Wright, and
once he had been a man like other
men. Now he was a man no longer,
but a living brain, housed in a metal
case, nourished by serum instead of
blood, provided with artificial senses
and means of motion.
The body of Simon Wright, that had
known the pleasures and ills of
physical existence, had long ago
mingled with the dust. But the mind of
Simon Wright lived on, brilliant and
unimpaired.
HE ridge lifted, gaunt and rocky,
along the rim of the lichen forest,
the giant growths crowding to the very
crest and down the farther slope into
the valley.
Here and there was a clearing
around what might once have been a
temple, now long fallen into ruin. The
vast ragged shapes of the lichens
loomed above it, wrinkled and wind-
torn and sad. Now and again a little
breeze came and set them to rustling
with a sound like muted weeping,
shaking down a rotten, powdery dust.
Simon Wright was weary of the
ridge and the dun-gray forest, weary
of waiting. Three of Titan's nights had
passed since he and Grag and Otho
and Curt Newton, whom the System
knew better as Captain Furore, had
hidden their ship down in the lichen-
forest and had waited here on the
ridge for a man who did not come.
This was the fourth night of
waiting, under the incredible glory of
Titan's sky.
But even the pageant of Saturn,
girdled with the blazing Rings and
attended by the brilliant swarm of
moons, failed to lift Simon's mental