"Edmond Hamilton - Devolution" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Edmond)

EDMOND HAMILTON
Devolution
Edmond Hamilton was one of the most prolific and popular authors of science fiction before the Golden Age. His first
professionally published story appeared in 1926 in Weird Tales, and it was in this magazine that he first made his reputation
writing a low-tech hybrid of science fiction and fantasy dubbed the "weird scientific" tale. Hamilton's stories are fast-oaced a
action-packed, cast with heroic scientists and space explorers and featuring men-aces of such colossal proportions-evolution
gone awry, interstellar invasion, planets on collision courses-that fans nicknamed him "World Wrecker Hamilton." Some of
Hamilton's best work from these years was collected in 1936 in The Horror on the Asteroid, one of the earliest appearances of p
science fiction in book form. Standout works from this period include The Time Raiders, a time-travel tale about a crack army
soldiers assembled from different eras to fight a threat to civilization, and the stories of the Interstellar Patrol, collected as Cr
Suns and Outside the Universe, about a pangalactic space brigade that protects galactic civilization from nonstop challenges t
existence. Hamilton's renown as a writer of thrilling space opera earned him the slot to write most of the lead novels for the
science fiction hero pulp Captain Future, under his own name and the pseudonym Brett Sterling, and his affiliation with this
magazine eventually earned him work writing for the Superman comics. He also wrote detective fiction and occasionally, un
the pseudonym Hugh Davidson, tales of straight horror, some of which have been collected in The Vampire Master. Hamilton
one of the few early writers to adapt to the changing demands of science fiction in the years after World War II. His novels T
Haunted Stars, A Yank at Valhalla, The Star Kings, and City at the World's End are notable for their fully drawn characterization
focus on human moods and motives. Some of his best short fiction from this time appears in What's It Like Out There? His Sta
novels, Weapon from Beyond, The Closed World, and World of the Starwolves, are ranked as some of the best space operas of the
postwar years.

Ross had ordinarily the most even of tempers, but four days of canoe travel in the wilds of North
Quebec had begun to rasp it. On this, their fourth stop on the bank of the river to camp for the night,
lost control and for a few moments stood and spoke to his two companions in blistering terms.
His black eyes snapped and his darkly unshaven handsome young face worked as he spoke. The
biologists listened to him without reply at first. Gray's blond young countenance was indignant but
Woodin, the older biologist, just listened im-passively with his gray eyes level on Ross's angry face.
When Ross stopped for breath, Woodin's calm voice struck in. "Are you fin-ished?"
Ross gulped as though about to resume his tirade, then abruptly got hold of himself. "Yes, I'm
finished," he said sullenly.
"Then listen to me," said Woodin, like a middle-aged father admonishing a sulky child.
"You're working yourself up for nothing. Neither Gray nor I have made one complaint yet. Neith
us has once said that we disbelieve what you told us."
"You haven't said you disbelieve, no!" Ross exclaimed with anger suddenly re-flaring. "But don't
suppose I can tell what you're thinking?
"You think I told you a fairy story about the things I saw from my plane, don't you? You think I
dragged you two up here on the wildest wild-goose chase, to look for incredible creatures that could
never have existed. You believe that, don't you?"
"Oh, damn these mosquitoes!" said Gray, slapping viciously at his neck and star-ing with unfrien
eyes at the aviator.
Woodin took command. "We'll go over this after we've made camp. Jim, get out the dufflebags. R
will you rustle firewood?"
They both glared at him and at each other, but grudgingly they obeyed. The tension eased for the
time.
By the time darkness fell on the little riverside clearing, the canoe was drawn up on the bank, the
trim little balloon-silk tent had been erected, and a fire crackled in front of it. Gray fed the fire with fa
knots of pine while Woodin cooked over it coffee, hot cakes, and the inevitable bacon.
The firelight wavered feebly up toward the tall trunks of giant hemlocks that walled the little
clearing on three sides. It lit up their three khaki-clad, stained figures and the irregular white block o
tent. It gleamed out there on the riffles of the McNorton, chuckling softly as it flowed on toward the L