"Keith Laumer - Future Imperfect" - читать интересную книгу автора (Laumer Keith)

What makes it important?"
He moved his eyes to look at me. "Not like this one, they haven't. It wasn't a mammoth! It was
a mastodon. And he was buckled into a harness like a circus pony."
 Chapter Two
"A mastodon in harness," I snorted, I was humoring him. "I suppose that implies that
Antarctica was warmer once than it is now, that it was inhabited, and that the natives had tamed
elephants. If the world weren't in the process of shaking itself to pieces, I'd find that pretty
interesting, I guessтАФbut still nothing to do murder over."
He lay there, his eyes shut, his chest rising and falling unevenly. His wrist was like a dry stick
when I checked it; the pulse was fast and light. I did not know whether he was asleep or in a coma.
Then his eyes opened suddenly. They were the only part of him that moved now.
"That was only the beginning," he said. His voice was fainter now, as though it were coming
from somewhere far away. "We went on down with the main shaft. At seventy-three hundred feet,
we came into a layer filled with artifacts like the Field Museum in Chicago before the lake got it.
Wood, vegetation, planks, pieces of structures, paper, cloth items. Clothing in vivid colors,
furniture, broken dishesтАФand some that weren't broken. Then we found the man." He stopped, and
his face twitched. I waited and he went on.
"ShortтАФnot over five six, thick in the body, arms like a wrestler. Covered with hairтАФlike
Jumbo; pale, dirty-blond hair, and a face like your bad dreams. Big square teeth, and he was
showing 'em. Thin lips, pulled back. He looked madтАФplenty mad. He was wearing clothesтАФmostly
straps and bits of brass, but well made. And there was a gun in his handтАФa mean-looking weapon,
short, like a riot gun, with a big chamber. We tested it later. It blew a forty-foot crater in the ice on
the shortest burst I could fire. Never did figure out how it worked.
"It was all pay dirt from then on. More of these ape men, more animals; then we saw the peak
of what we thought was a mountain, rising up from below. It wasn't a mountain. It was a building.
We melted our way down to it, forced a door. There was no ice inside. We wondered about that;
then we decided that snowfalls had buried the buildings; and the inhabitants had evacuated, set up
temporary camps on the top of the snow. But it kept snowing. In time the weight compressed the
snow into clear ice. Probably there was some tunneling down to the city; we found what looked like
old bores, flooded and frozen.
"I was in the advance party that broke into the tower. Terrible odor. Strange-looking furniture,
mostly rotted, rotted rugs and wall hangings, some bonesтАФmen and animals. And one skeleton of a
modern man with a broken skull. We got the idea the Neanderthal types were slaves. Maybe one of
them paid off a grudge.
"There were plenty of metal and ceramic items aroundтАФnot primitive. We were all pretty
excited. ThenтАФthings started to happen. We heard noises, saw signs that somebody had been there
ahead of us. Then men started disappearing. Found one man dead, with a hole in him. Hayle called
topside for reinforcements. No answer. He figured the cable was broken. He sent me up with a
couple of men to check on things, report what we'd run into. He was worriedтАФplenty worried.
"At the top, Bachman and the other sailor stepped off. I stayed in the lift to run a test on the
telephone. I got Hayle: he yelled something at me, but I couldn't make it out. Sounded like shots;
then nothing.
"I started out to join the menтАФand it blew. I saw a flash; ice hit me in the face, and the car
started to fall. . . .
"When I came to, I was still in the car, in the dark. It was canted sideways, half full of
pulverized ice. I wasn't hurt muchтАФa few bruises, but my left glove was gone, and my faceplate.
"I could see a dim glow up above. I went to work on the ice. It was like loose gravel. Maybe I
should have gone down to check on the AdmiralтАФbut I didn't. I got to the surface the quickest way
I could. The car had jammed in the shaft about ten feet down. There was nothing in sight but ice.
No sign of the camp, or of Bachman or the other men. And no signs of a big quake, either. Just a