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

"But this is a dead world," the younger man protested.
"It is a young world," Theron corrected.
He paused, and his hand lifted, pointing. Ardath stared at the slow, sullen tide that rippled drearily toward them. The gloomy wash of water receded. And there on the rocky slope lay something that made him nod understandingly.
It was not large. A greasy, shining blob of slime, featureless and repulsive, it was unmistakably alive, undeniably sentient!
The shinmiering globule of protoplasm was drawn back with the next wave. When Ardath's eyes met Theron's, the dying man smiled triumphantly.
"Life! There's sun here, Ardath, beyond the clouds-a Sun that sends forth energy, cosmic rays, the rays of evolution. Immeasurable ages will pass before human beings exist here, but exist they will! Our study of countless other planets enables us to predict the course of evolution here. From the unicellular creatures will come sea-beings with vertebrae, then amphibiae, and true reptiles.
"Then warm-blooded beasts will evolve from the flying reptiles and the dinosaurs. Finally there will be ape-like men, wh& will yield the planet to-true men!"
"But it will take millennia!"
"You must remain here," Theron stated. "How many of us survived the voyage from Kyria? You must wait, Ardath, even a million years if it is necessary. Our stasis ray kept us in suspended animation while we came across space. Take the ship beyond the atmosphere. Adjust it to a regular orbit, like a second satellite around this world. -
"Set the controls so you will awaken eventually, and be able to ~investigate the evolutionary progress of this planet. You will wait a long time, I admit. But finally you will find men."
"Men like us?"


Theron shook his head regretfully.
"No. Super-mentality is a matter of eugenically controlled breeding. Occasionally a mental giant will be born, but not often. On Kymia we bred and mated these mental giants, till
- eventually their progeny peopled the planet. You must do the same with this world." -
"I will," Ardath consented. "But how-"
"Go through the ages. Do not stop till you find one of these mental giants. He will be easily recognized, for, almost from infancy, he will be far in advance of his contemporaries. He will withdraw from them, turning to the pursuit of wisdom. He will be responsible for many of the great inventions of his time. Take this man-or woman, perhaps-and go on into time, until you have found a mental giant of the opposite sex.
"You could never mate with a female of this world, Ardath. Since you are from another system, it would be biologically impossible. The union would be sterile. This is your duty-find a super-mentality, take him from his own time~ sector, and find a mate for him in the more distant future. From that union will arise a race of giants equal to the Kyrians. In a sense, you will have been their foster-father."
Theron sighed and turned his head till his cheek lay against -the bare rock of the shore.
"May the great Architect guide you, Ardath," he said softly. -
Abruptly his head slum1ed, and Theron -was dead. The gray waves whispered a requiem. Ardath stood silent, looking down at the worn, tired face, now relaxed in death.
He was alone, inflnit~ely far from the nearest human being. Then another feeling came, making him realize that he was no longer a homeless wanderer of space.
Never in his life had Ardath stood on a world's surface. The others had told him of Kyria, and on the pictorial library screens he had seen views of green and sunset lands that were agonizingly beautiful. Inevitably Ardath had come to fear the black inmensity of the starlit void, to hate its cold, eternal changelessness. He had dreamed of walldng on grassy, rolling plains. . .
That would come, for he knew Theron had been right. Cycads and ferns would grow where Ardath now stood. Amphibiae would come out of the waters and evolve, slowly of course, but with inexorable certainty. He could afford to wait. -


First, though, he needed power. The great atomic engine of the ship was useless, exhausted.
- Atomic power resembled dynamite in that it needed some -outside source of energy to get it started. Dynamite required a percussion cap. The engine of the golden ship needed power. Solar energy? Lenses were required. Besides, the cloudblanket was an insurmountable handicap, filtering out most of the necessary rays. Coal? It would not exist here for ages.
A tremble shook the ground, and Ardath nodded thoughtfully. There was power below the power of seething lava, enormous pressures, and heat that could melt solid rock. Could it be harnessed?
Steam . . . a geyser! That would provide the necessary energy to start the atomic motor. After that, anything would be possible.
With a single regretful glance at the dead Theron, Ardath set out to explore the savage new world.
For two days and nights he hunted, growing haggard and w~ea1y. At last he found an area of lava streams, shuddering rock, and geysers. Steam feathered up into the humid air, and to the north a red glow brightened the gray sky,
Ardath stood for a while, watching. His quest was ended. Long weeks of arduous work still lay ahead, but now be had no doubt of ultimate success. The steam demons would set the atomic motor into the operation. After that, he could rip ores from the ground and find chemicals. But after that?
The ship must be made spaceworthy again, though not for another long voyage. Such a course would be fruitless. Of all the planets the Kyrians had visited, only this world was capable of supporting life.
As yet, mere cells of blind, insensate protoplasm swarmed in the sullen seas, but those cells would develop. Evolution would work upon them. Perhaps in a million years human beings, intelligent creatures, would walk this world. Then, one day, a super-mentality would be born, and Ardath would find that kindred mind. He would take that mental giant into the future, in search of a suitable mate. After dozens of generations there would arise a civilization that would rival that of Kyria-his home planet now utterly destroyed without trace. -
Time passed as Ardath worked. He blasted out a grave for Theron on the shore where the old Kyrian had died. He repaired the golden craft. Tirelessly he toiled.


Five months later, th~щ repaired space ship rose, carrying its single passenger. Through the atmosphere it fled. It settled into an orbit, became a second, infinitesimal moon revolving around the mother planet.
Within it Ardath's robot machinery began to operate. A ray beamed out, touching and bathing the man's form, which was stretched on a low couch.
Slowly consciousness left Ardath. The atomic structure of his body was subtly altered. Electrons slowed in their orbits. Since they emitted no quanta, Ardath's energy was frozen in
-~ the utter motionlessness of stasis. Neither -alive nor dead, he slept. -
The ray clicked off. When Ardath wakened, he would see a different world older and stranger. Perhaps it would even be peopled by intelligent beings.
Silently the space ship swept on. Far beneath it a planet shuddered in the titanic grip of dying fires. The rains poured down, eroding, endless. The tides flowed and ebbed. Always the cloud veil shrouded the world that was to be called Earth. Amid the shattering thunder of deluges, new lands rose and continents were formed.
Life, blind, hungry and groping, crawled up on the beaches, where it basked for a time in the dim sunlight.