"Charles L. Harness-George Washington Slept Here" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harness Charles L)

"I've never told anyone before. Not even him." She sighed.
Him? Better not ask just yet. He waited.
 "I came out of the Rock at sunrise," said Sena. "That's the first thing I remember. The great ship was
there. Three or four of the People were standing around, watching me. I knew they had made me. They
had copied an Indian girl of the neighborhood. I also knew they had given me much knowledge, and I
knew what I was supposed to do to preserve the Rock. After a time they got back into the ship, and it
made a soft hissing sound, and then it vanished."
"These People... what did they look like?"
"They floated... they pulsed... they vibrated... mostly they were balls of light... sometimes things stuck
out of them, like coiling light rays..."
"Go on. What happened next?'
"That morning a herd of great horned creatures came down to the river to drink."
"Deer?"
"Much bigger. The giant bison, I think. Their horns were easily six feet across, point to point."
"Are you sure, Sena? The giant bison became extinct in North America about ten thousand years ago."
"That's what they were, though."
"How about horses? Camels?"
"Those too. And giant sloths. And big cats, what you call saber-tooth tigers. They're all gone, now."
Sandia fauna, thought Potts. All extinct by seven thousand B.C. "You were 'copied' from an Indian
girl? Did you have much contact with the early Indians?"
"Not much. But they were there. They hunted the bison and the other hooved creatures."
"With bows and arrows?"
"This was before bows and arrows. But they had spears and were skilled with the atlatl-- the spear
thrower. And there were cliffs nearby-- the Palisades, where Mr. York died. The early people
stampeded the herds over the cliffs and took meat and hides down below. The cliffs were much steeper
then."
"Why did your People select this particular site for the Rock?"
"It's one of the few places they could bring into focus with a matching plate on Dhora. The plates line
up every two hundred years, and make sort of a bridge. Then they can cross over."
"Dhora?"
"Their world."
"I see." (He didn't.) "Why did they make you a female?"
"I believe they thought the Indians would consider me less a threat. In this they were only partly right."
"Oh?"
"At first the Indians wanted to kill me, but then I showed them how I could sink down into the Rock,
and after that they were greatly afraid of me. They called me Asenaapeeneniwa, Spirit-of-the-Rock.
Later... much later, they shortened it to just plain Sena. They brought me meat, still hot on cooking sticks,
and later little corn cakes."
"Ah, so you do have an alimentary system?"
"Of sorts. Not like yours, though. I can take it or leave it."
"Let's see if I understand. You're not a true human being. You're really a sort of alien artifact. And so
is the Rock."
"That's true."
"And you're about ten thousand years old."
"Yes."
"The river, the town, the county... all named after you? Not the other way around?"
"Most improbable, isn't it, Mr. Potts?" She seemed grimly amused.
He sat there, staring at her, rudely, tactlessly. She looked back at him. Finally he took a deep breath.
"Your story is indeed improbable. But I would like very much to believe you."
"Then we are making progress."