"Colin Kapp - The Subways of Tazoo" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kapp Colin)

in deference to a large no-smoking notice over the jury-rigged electrolysis plant. Then he signalled to
his assistants who dragged a large object into the hut and dropped it on the floor. Fritz looked at it
dubiously.
"I think you've come to the wrong department. It looks like the great grandaddy of an alien chicken
wishbone once belonging to some grandaddy alien chicken. Why not present it to the biology boys?"
"I did," said Nevill, "but they sent it right back with the message that you were responsible for
investigating ma-chinery."
"Machinery?" Fritz surveyed the acquisition moodily. "Have you tried it on the catering
department? Perhaps they could turn it into some sort of broth."
"Machinery," said Nevill firmly. "And I'll tell you why. It isn't animal, it's vegetableтАФTazoon ironwood
to be pre-cise. Also, it didn't grow that way. It was manufactured, or at least trimmed to shape, as
witness the tooling marks. Fur-thermore, the Tazoons were plenty fond of them because the Southern
plain out yonder has them at an estimated density of nearly half a million to the square
kilometre."
Fritz choked for a full half minute. "Half a million?"
Nevill nodded. "And that plain is pretty big. If the sam-pling we have done is representative of
the whole area there could be something like five thousand million of those on that one
plain alone. I know the Tazoons were alien beyond our conception of the word, but I just
can't see them producing that many just for the hell of it. That would be an exercise akin to paving the
Sahara desert with pencil sharpeners. It's my belief that the wishbones are something functional. I want
you to tell me what they were and what their function was."
Fritz nodded. "I'll let you have a preliminary report in a day or so, but if that's a machine
I should hate to see their idea of a great big alien chicken wishbone."
After Nevill had left, Fritz spent a quiet hour examining the wishbone from all angles and going all over
the surface of it with a magnifying glass looking for clues as to its function. Then Jacko had the wishbone
hauled to the work-shop for a more thorough examination. He reported back when the work was
completed.
 "I think we have something here, Fritz. You know those nodules on the inner surfaces, well, the
fluoroscope shows a dark mass of some foreign material in each. If you're agreeable we're proposing to
cut one out and see what it is."
"Start cutting," Fritz said, "because if this is a sample of Tazoon engineering then the sooner we start to
come to grips with it the better."
Reluctantly the handsaw cut into the ancient ironwood. Halfway through, the blade screeched
complainingly on some hard inclusion. Then the nodule became detached, and from inside it Jacko shook
a large, bright crystal on to the table.
"I thought as much," said Fritz. "There are metal fibres in the structure of the wishbone and metallized
facets on the crystal. On this evidence I'd say this was some form of piezo-electric device. And see how
the crystal is drilledтАФ do you suppose there could have been strings across the wishbone?"
Jacko counted the nodules equal on both sides. "Lord, a harp!" he said in a voice heavy with
incredulity.
"Or a sound-transducer," said Fritz. "There are common electrical paths through the ironwood, and
connections to the crystals. If you applied an alternating current to those contacts, the crystals would
excite the strings in sympathy according to the resonant frequency of the particular sys-tem. I wonder
what on earth it would sound like? Jacko, start re-stringing what's left of this thing while I sort
out a power amplifier and a few bits and pieces. Together we can make some be-eautiful music."
"Right," said Jacko, "but if your conception of music is anything like your engineering I'm going to take
time out to make some earplugs too."


THREE