"By the Falls by Harry Harrison" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

world up there. Dogs and everything, just like ours."
"I never speculate," Bodum said, mollified. "I'll make
some coffee."
He took the lamp to the stove and Carter, left 'alone in
the partial darkness went back to 'the window. It drew
him. "I must ask you some questions for my article," he
said but did not speak loudly enough for Bodum to hear.
Everything he bad meant to do here seemed irrelevant as
he looked out at The Falls. The wind shifted. The spray
was briefly blown clear and The Falls were once more a
mighty river coming down from the sky. When he canted
his head he .saw exactly as if he were looking across a
river.
And there, upstream, a ship appeared, a large liner with
rows of portholes. It sailed the surface of .the river faster
than ship had ever sailed before and he had to jerk his
bead to follow its motion. When it passed, no more than
a few hundred yards away, for one instant he could see
it clearly. The people aboard it were banging to the rails,
some with their mouths open as though shouting in fear.
Then it was gone and there was only the water, rushing
endlessly by.
"Did you see it?" Carter shouted, spinning about.
"The coffee will be ready soon."
"There, out there," Carter cried, taking Bodum by the
arm. "In The Falls. It was a ship, I swear it was, falling
from up above. With people on it. There must be a whole
world up there that we know nothing about."
Bodum reached up to the shelf for a cup, breaking
Carter's grip with the powerful movement of his arm.
"My dog came down The Falls. I found it and stuffed
it myself."
"Your dog, of course, I'll not deny that. But there were
people on that ship and I'll swear--I'm not mad--that
their skins were a different color from ours."
"Skin is skin, just skin color."
"I know. That is what we have. But it must be possible
for skims to be other colors, even if we don't know about
it."
"Sugar?"
"Yes, please. Two."
Carter sipped at the coffee-it was strong and warm. In
spite of himself he was drawn back to the window. He
looked out and sipped at the coffee--and started when
something black and formless came down. And other
things. He could not tell what they were because the spray
was blowing toward the house again. He tasted grounds
at the bottom of 'his cup 'and left the last sips. He put 'the
cup carefully aside.
Again the eddying wind currents shifted the screen of