"Henry Kuttner - The Creature From Beyond Infinity UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kuttner Henry)

The cold stars glittered frostily in an abyss of empty black. Some icy breath of the unknown seemed to blow down from

the frigid, airless seas between the planets. Marion shuddered.
"I see nothing unusual," she said.
"Naturally. No one has. There's nothing visible, and yet-" Wearily he rubbed his forehead. "It's impossible that my experiinents have lied."
"Drink some coffee," Marion urged.
COurt followed her to the table and sat down. As she poured the steaming liquid, his somber eyes dwelt on her face.
"Are you game for an airplane trip into Canada?" he asked abruptly.
"Yes. When?"
"As soon as I can arrange it. There's a man I must see, a- a patient."
Court gulped down untasted coffee and blinked tiredly. "You should get at least a little sleep."
"Not yet. I don't know-" He came to a sudden decision.
"Marion, you don't know anything about this experiment I'm working on. No one knows about it yet, except me. All this data I've been collecting lately has been for a purpose. You haven't any idea what that purpose is, have you?"
"No, I haven't."
"Well," Court declared, with curious calm, "it's simply this
---I have reason to believe that the Earth is going to be destroyed. Wait a minute!" he cried hastily. "Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned this till I was absolutely certain. But I want
- to talk to someone."
His unrealized loneliness showed naked for an unguarded second on his face. He caught himself, and was once more impassive.
"The Earth is going to face a plague that will destroy civilization. Of that, at least, I am certain."
"A plague," she breathed. - -"I call it that, for lack of a better term. Every being on this planet will be affected by it." -
Marion looked at him sharply. Her lovely eyes narrowed.
"Affected? Don't you mean destroyed?"
Court pushed back his chair and rose.
"No," he whispered. "I don't." His grave lips went hard. "Come here, Marion. Look at this."
He strode to a safe in the wall, opened it, and withdrew a small oblong box of lead. Set in one face was a ro~und, transparent disc.


"Look through the lens," he commanded. "Don't get too close to that thing, though."
Marion obeyed. Through the tiny pane, she could see within the box a shining lump of matter, no larger than the nail of her thumb.
"It's phosphorescent," she said. "What is it-an ore?"
"A specimen of flesh taken from the thigh of a man named Pierre Locicault, a French-Can~dian."
"Flesh?" The girl peered again at the object. "Was he exposed to radium?"
Court replaced the box in the safe.
"No, nothing like that. Locicault lived in a little settlement in a valley in the wilderness. A month ago he staggered into the nearest town, emaciated and nearly dead. His story was just about unbelievable. He claimed that one day a heavy fog-abnormally heavy-blanketed his valley, and affected the inhabitants peculiarly.
"They became incredibly hungry, ate enormous meals. Their skin became hot to the point of high fever. And they
- grew so old that most of them died. Locicault went for help, but nobody recognized him when he arrived in town. He looked thirty years older, What does that suggest to you, Marion?" -
"Increased metabolism," she said unhesitatingly.
"Exactly. A rescue party was sent out. They found the corpses of a dozen old me~ and women in the valley, but no sign of what killed them. There was no sign of a fog, nor anything dangerous. Meanwhile, Locicault was luckily put into an isolation ward in the l~ospital. He ate tremendously. It was noticed that 1№s skin emitted radiation. In the dark, his body actually shone."
Court lit a cigarette for a few abstracted .puffs before continuing.
"His nurse caught the contagion. She killed herself. Locicault is kept in utter isolation now, for there isn't a doctor or a nurse who dares to get near him. When Doctor Granger wired me, I suggested lead insulation, so he could obtain this specimen for me to study. I want to see Locicault and make further experiments upon him."
Marion frowned. "You have other evidence, of course?"
"Naturally. Similar cases have been reported to me. This isn't anything new. Do you remember, about seven years ago, a newspaper story about a valley in France where the in-habitants were killed by a heavy fog? - It was attributed to


poison gas. Do you remember that West-Indian island where life was wiped out overnight, without any explanation at all?
- People talked about volcanjc gas.
"My files are full of apparently meaningless items like that. Freaks and sports born to animals and humans. So-called ghost stories about apparitions that shone in the dark, There are dozens of other examples."
The girl shuddered as she thought of the tag of flesh she had seen. -
"And do you think this is the beginning of a plague?"
"My graphs and charts show an upward swing. These occurrences happen more frequently as time goes on. Whatever causes them is growing more powerful." --