"Jeff Hecht - The Rumor of the Ruined City" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hecht Jeff)

only told you, would you believe this? Science says this cannot happen.
Science says nothing that lived on Earth 500 million years ago could have
built walls or cities. Who carved the rocks? Trilobites with their many little
legs? Hallucogenia or Anomalocaris from the Burgess Shale? All just overgrown
insects or crabs. It is impossible."
Anna looked at him, puzzled. "Do you believe that?"
Nikolai grinned, light glinting from his gold tooth. "Of course not! I
believe my eyes. I believe ground truth. I know what I see here. I know what I
saw in Siberia. Something cut rocks and set them on top of each other. These
are not tire tracks that somebody can invent an animal like Climactichnites to
explain." It was not exactly madness that glinted in his eyes, but the manic
energy that had pushed him up the hill. "How long have you worked here?"
"Only three days," Anna sighed. "After we found it, we camped nearby
and stayed for two extra days. We searched for other exposures, but this is
the best. We didn't disturb it. We didn't have park permits, and besides, as
you say, no one would believe us."
"No one will believe us, anyway. They are not ready to believe." He
turned to me, asking "Am I not correct, Vern? You engineers know scientists."
I nodded. I had learned a lot about Anna after the discovery, as we
talked for hours under the stars near her cramped little tent. She is not the
most cautious of paleontologists. She knows some who still doubt that an
asteroid impact killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, despite the hole as
big as Connecticut it made in Mexico. We had much less evidence, and saying
something smart enough to pile rocks on top of each other lived half a billion
years ago required a new scientific revolution. Sometimes Anna wanted to
forget it.
"So what do you suggest we do?"
"Dig," said Nikolai, setting down his pack. He took from the back
pocket his geologist's hammer, pointed at one end, square at the other. He
must have read the uneasiness on Anna's face, because he quickly added,
"carefully, of course." He put on worn plastic goggles, then whacked the rock.
Chips flew.
****
We chipped at the rock face for hours, with little reward. Anna and
Nikolai peered at the fragments through their hand lenses. They found only
bits of trilobite, and a few tiny brachiopod shells. I chipped away shale, and
found the edge of the pale rock was as smooth as it had looked on the surface.
"Whoever stacked these rocks spent more time working them than the
people who left the cellar hole," I told Anna as we hiked back. "Those were
just undressed fieldstone. This looks carved."
 She looked distressed, a 36-year-old assistant professor fascinated by
something that wouldn't yield the publications she needed for tenure.
Nikolai didn't notice her expression. "It probably was," he said. "But
I wonder how soft-bodied animals could have done it."
Anna fired up the gasoline stove while I chopped vegetables for a stew.
Nikolai sat by the lantern, comparing rock fragments with photographs from his
bag. When everything was in the pot and simmering, We sat with him.
"Half a billion years, it has been there. It is incredible, is it not?"
I nodded, but I would have done so before we found the ruined city. I
think my family is old because some ancestor fought in the Battle of Saratoga,