"Leinster, Murray - The Fifth-Dimension Tube UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

Evelyn shook her head. But a shadow passed over their heads. The pilot leaped to his feet and shouted. There were three planes soaring above them, and the pilot in the first was in the act of releasing a smoking object over the side. At the grounded pilotТs shout, he flung his ship into a frantic dive, while behind him the smoking thing billowed out a thicker and thicker cloud. His plane was nearly hidden by the vapor when he released it. It fell two hundred yards and more away, and the white mist spread and spread. But it fell short of the little hillock.

UICK thinking,Ф said Tommy coolly. УHe thought we had this man a prisoner, and heТd be better off dead.
ButЧФ
Their captive was shouting again. His head thrown back, he called sentence after sentence aloft while the three ships soared back and forth above their heads, soundless as bats. One of the three rose steeply and soared away toward the city. Their captive, grinning, turned and nodded his head satisfiedly. Then he sat down to wait.
Twenty minutes later a monstrous machine with ungainly flapping wings came heavily over the swamp. It checked and settled with a terrific flapping and an even more terrific din. Half a dozen armed men waited warily for the three to approach. The golden weapons lifted alertly as they drew near. The wounded man explained at some length. His explanation was dismissed brusquely. A man advanced and held out his hands for TommyТs weapons.
УI donТt like it,Ф growled Tommy, Уbut weТve got to think of Earth. If you get a chance, hide your gun, Evelyn.Ф
He pushed on the safety catches and passed over his guns. The pilot he had shot down led them onto the fenced-in deck of the monstrous ornithopter. Machinery roared. The wings began to beat. They were nearly invisible from the speed of their flapping when the ship lifted vertically from the ground. It rose straight up for fifty feet, the motion of the wings changed subtly, and it swept forward.
It swung in a vast half circle and headed back across the
marsh for the Golden City. Five minutes of noisy flight during which the machine flapped its way higher and higher above the marshЧwhich seemed more noisome sand horrible still from aboveЧand then the golden towers of the city were below. Strange and tapering and beautiful, they were. No single line was perfectly straight, nor was any form ungraceful. These towers sprang upward in clean-soaring curves toward the sky. Bridges between them were gossamerlike things that seemed lace spun out in metal. And as Tommy looked keenly and saw the jungle crowding close against the cityТs metal walls, the flapping of the ornithopterТs wings changed again and it seemed to plunge downward like a stone toward a narrow landing place amid the great cityТs towering buildings.

CHAPTER VI
The Golden City
THE thing that struck Tommy first of all was the scarcity of men in the city, compared to its size. The next thing was the entire absence of women. The roar of machines smote upon his consciousness as a bad third, though they made din enough. Perhaps he ignored the machine noises because the ornithopter on which they had arrived made such a racket itself.
They landed on a paved space perhaps a hundred yards by two hundred, three sides of which were walled off by soaring towers. The fourth gave off on empty space, and he realized that he was still at least a hundred feet above the ground. The ornithopter landed with a certain skilful precision and its wings ceased to beat. Behind it, the two fixed-wing machines soared down, leveled, hovered, and settled upon amazingly inadequate wheels. Their pilots got out and began to push them toward one side of the landing area. Tommy noticed it, of course. He was noticing everything, just now. He said amazedly:
УEvelyn! They launch these planes with catapults like those our battleships use! They donТt take off under their own power!Ф
The six men on the ornithopter put their shoulders to their machine and trundled it out of the way. Tommy blinked at the sight.
УNo field attendants!Ф He gazed out across the open portion of the land area and saw an elevated thoroughfare below. Some sort of vehicle, gleaming like gold, moved swiftly on two wheels. There was a walkway in the center of the street with room for a multitude. But only two men were in sight upon it. УLord!Ф said Tommy. УWhere are the people?Ф
There was brief talk among the crew of the ornithopter. Two of them picked up TommyТs weapons, and the pilot he had wounded made a gesture indicating that he should follow. He led the way to an arched door in the nearest tower. A little twowheeled car was waiting. They got into it and the pilot fumbled with the controls. As he worked at itЧrather clumsily on account of his armЧthe rest of the ornithopterТs crew came in. They wheeled out another vehicle, climbed into it, and shot away down a sloping passage.

THEIR own vehicle followed and emerged upon the paved and nearly empty thoroughfare. Tall buildings rose all about them, with curved walls soaring dizzily skyward. There was every sign of a populous city, including the dull drumming roar of many machines, but the streets were empty. The little machine moved swiftly for minutes. Twice it swung aside and entered a sloping incline. Once it went up. The other time it dived down seventy feet on a four-hundred-foot ramp. Then it swung sharply to the right, meandered into a street-level way leading into the heart of a monster building, and stopped. And in all its travel it had not passed fifty people.
The pilot-turned-chauffeur turned and grinned amiably, and led the way again. StepsЧtwenty or thirty of them. Then they emerged suddenly into a vast room. It must have been a hundred and fifty feet long, fifty wide, and nearly as high. It was floored with alternate blocks of what seemed to be an ironhard black wood and the omnipresent golden metal. Columns and pilasters about the place gave forth the same subdued deep golden glow. Light streamed from panels inset in the wall and ceilingЧa curious saffron-red light. There was a massive table of the hard black wood. Chairs with curiously designed backs were ranged about it. They were benches, really, but they served the purpose of chairs. Each was too narrow to hold more than one person. The room was empty.
They waited. After a long time a man in a blue tunic came into the room and sat down at one of the benches. A long time later, another man came in, in red; and another and another, until there were a dozen in all. They regarded Tommy and Evelyn with a weary suspicion. One of themЧan old man with a white beardЧasked questions. The pilot answered them. At a word, the two men with TommyТs weapons placed them on the table. They were inspected casually, as familiar things. They probably were, since some of JacaroТs gunmen had been killed in a fight in this city. Another question.
The pilot explained briefly and offered Tommy the blackmetal pad again. It still contained the incomplete map of a hemisphere, and was obviously a repetition of the question of where he came from.

TOMMY took it, frowning thoughtfully. Then an idea struck him. He found the little stud which, pressed by the padТs owner, had erased the previous drawings. He pressed it and the lines disappeared. And Tommy drew, crudely enough, that complicated diagram which is supposed to represent a cube which is a cube in four dimensions: a tesseract. Upon one surface of the cube he indicated the curving towers of the Golden City. Upon a surface representing a plane beyond the three dimensions of normal experience, he repeated the angular tower structures of New York. He shrugged rather hopelessly as he passed it over, but to his amazement it was understood at once.
The little black pad passed from hand to hand and an animated discussion took place. One rather hard-faced man was the most animated of all. The bearded old man demurred. The lmrd-faced man insisted. Tommy could see that his pilotТs cxpression was becoming uneasy. But then a compromise seemed to be arrived at. The bearded man spoke a single. ceremonial phrase and the twelve men rose. They moved toward various doors and one by one left, until the room was empty.
But the pilot looked relieved. He grinned cheerfully at Tommy and led the way back to the two-wheeled vehicle. The two men with TommyТs weapons vanished. And again there was a swift, cyclonelike passage along empty ways with the
throbbing of machinery audible everywhere. Into the base of a second building, up endless stairs, past innumerable doors. It seemed to Tommy that he heard voices behind some of them, and they were womenТs voices.
At a private, triple knock a door opened wide, and the pilot led the way into a room, closed and locked the door behind him, and called. A womanТs voice cried out in astonishment. Through an inner arch a woman came running eagerly. Her face went blank at sight of Tommy and Evelyn, and her hand flew to a tiny golden object at her waist. Then, at the pilotТs chuckle, she flushed vividly.

HOURS later, Tommy and Evelyn were able to talk it over. They were alone then, and could look out an oval window upon the Golden City all about them. It was dark, but saffron-red panels glowed in building walls all along the thoroughfares, and tiny glowing dots in the soaring spires of gold told of people within other dwellings like this.
УAs I see it,Ф said Tommy restlessly, Уthe CouncilЧand it must have been that in the big room to-dayЧput us in our friendТs hands to learn the language. HeТs been working with me four hours, drawing pictures, and IТve been writing down words IТve learned. I must have several hundred of them. But we do our best talking with pictures. And, Evelyn, this cityТs in a bad fix.Ф
Evelyn said irrelevantly: УHer name is Ahnya, Tommy, and sheТs a dear. We got along beautifully. IТll bet I found out things you donТt even guess at.Ф
УYou probably have,Ф admitted Tommy, frowning. УCheck up on this: our friendТs name is Aten, and heТs an air-pilot and also has something to do with growing food-stuffs in some special towers where they grow crops by artificial light only. Some of the plants he sketched look amazingly like wheat, by the way. The name of the town isФЧhe looked at his notesЧ УYugna. There are some other towns, ten or twelve of them. Rahn is the nearest, and itТs worse off than this one.Ф
УOf course,Ф said Evelyn, smiling. УThey use cuyal openly, there!Ф
УHowТd you learn all that?Ф demanded Tommy.
УAhnya told me. We made gestures and smiled at each other.
We understood perfectly. SheТs crazy about her husband, and I
Чwell, she knows IТm going to marry you, so. . .
Tommy grunted. -
УI suppose she explained with a smile and gestures just how much of a strain it is, simply keeping the city going?Ф
УOf course,Ф said Evelyn calmly. УThe cityТs fighting against the jungle, which grows worse all the time. They used to grow their foodstuffs in the open fields. Then within the city. Now they use empty towers and artificial light. I donТt know why.Ф

TOMMY grunted again.
УThis planetТs just had, or is having, a change of geologic period,Ф he explained, frowning. УThe plants people used to live on arenТt adapted to the new climate and new plants fit for food are scarce. They have to grow food under shelter, now, and their machines take an abnormal amount of supervisionЧ I donТt know why. The air-conditioners for the food plants; the machines that fight back the jungle creepers which thrive in the new climate and try to crawl into the city to smother it; the power machines; the clothing machinesЧa million machines have to be kept going to keep back the jungle and fight off starvation and just hold on doggedly to the bare fact of civilization. And theyТre short-handed. The law of diminishing returns seems to operate. TheyТre trying to maintain a civilization higher than their environment will support. They work until theyТre ready to drop, just to stay in the same place. And the monotony and the strain makes some of them take to cuyal for relief.Ф
He surveyed the city from the oval window, frowning in thought.
УItТs a drug which grows wild,Ф he added slowly. УIt peps them up. It makes the monotony and the weariness bearable. And then, suddenly, they break. They hate the machines and the city and everything they ever knew or did. ItТs a sort of delayed-action psychosis which goes off with a bang. Some of them go amuck in the city, using their belt-weapons until theyТre killed. More of them bolt for the jungle. The city loses better than one per cent of its population a year to the jungle. And then theyТre Ragged Men, half mad at all times and wholly mad as far as the city and its machines are concerned.Ф
Evelyn linked her arm in his.
УSomehow,Ф she told him, smiling, УI think one Thomas Reames is working out ways and means to help a city named Yugna.Ф