"James P. Hogan - Giants 1 - Inherit The Stars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hogan James P)

red. This disappeared to be replaced by a contour map of what looked like a
rugged and bro. ken stretch of terrain. A slowly pulsing point of light
appeared in the center of the picture and began moving across the map as
Caldwell rotated a tracker ball set into the panel that held the keyboard. The
light halted at a point where the contours indicated the junction of a steep-
sided cleft valley with a wider gorge. The cleft valley was narrow and seemed
to branch off from the gorge in a rising curve.
"This map shows the area in question," the director resumed. "The cursor
shows where a minor cleft joins the main fault running down toward the left.
The survey boys left their vehicle at this point and proceeded on up to the
cleft on foot, looking for a way to the top of that large rock mass -- the one
tagged 'five sixty'." As Caldwell spoke, the pulsing light moved slowly along
between the minor sets of contours, tracing out the path taken by the UN team.
They watched it negotiate the bend above the mouth of the cleft and proceed
some distance farther. The light approached the side of the cleft and touched
it at a place where the contours merged into a single heavy line. There it
stopped.
"Here the side was a sheer cliff about sixty feet high. That was where
they came across the first thing that was unusual -- a hole in the base of the
rock wall. The sergeant leading the group described it as being like a cave.
That strike you as odd?"
Hunt raised his eyebrows and shrugged. "Caves don't grow on moons," he
said simply.
"Exactly."
The screen now showed a photo view of the area, apparently taken from
the spot at which the survey vehicle had been parked. They recognized the
break in the wall of the gorge where the cleft joined it. The cleft was higher
up than had been obvious from the map and was approached by a ramp of loose
rubble. In the background they could see a squat tower of rock flattened on
top -- presumably the one marked "560" on the map. Caldwell allowed them some
time to reconcile the picture with the map before bringing up the second
frame. It showed a view taken high up, this time looking into the mouth of the
cleft. A series of shots then followed, progressing up to and beyond the bend.
"These are stills from a movie record," Caldwell commented. "I won't bother
with the whole set." The final frame in the sequence showed a hole in the rock
about five feet across.
"Holes like this aren't unknown on the Moon," Caldwell remarked. "But
they are rare enough to prompt our men into taking a closer look. The inside
was a bit of a mess. There had been a rockfall -- maybe several falls; not
much room -- just a heap of rubble and dust...at first sight, anyway." A new
picture on the screen confirmed this statement. "But when they got to probing
around a bit more, they came across something that was really unusual.
Underneath they found a body -- dead!"
The picture changed again to show another view of the interior, taken
from the same angle as the previous one. This time, however, the subject was
the top half of a human figure lying amid the rubble and debris, apparently at
the stage of being half uncovered. It was clad in a spacesuit which, under the
layer of gray-white dust, appeared to be bright red. The helmet seemed intact,
but it was impossible to make out any details of the face behind the visor
because of the reflected camera light. Caldwell allowed them plenty of time to