"Larry Niven - At the Bottom of a Hole" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

Martians?
In the entire log I find no mention of a Martian being seen. Bubbletown never ran across any Martian artifact, except the wells. If there are Martians, where are they? Where are their cities? Mars was subjected to all kinds of orbital reconnaissance in the early days. Even a city as small as bubbletown would have been seen.
Maybe there are no cities. But where do the diamond blocks come from? Diamonds as big as the well material don't form naturally. It takes a respectable technology to make them that big. Which implies cities--I think.
That mummy. Could it have been hundreds of thousands of years old? A man couldn't last that long on Mars, because the water in his body would react with the nitrogen dioxide around him. On the Moon, he could last millions of years. The mummified Martian's body chemistry was and is a complete mystery, barring the napalmlike explosion when water touched it. Perhaps it was that durable, and perhaps one of the pair who left to die returned to cut the dome instead, and perhaps I'm seeing goblins. This is the place for it. If I ever get out of here, you try and catch me near another hole.

April 26, 2112 The sun shows clear and bright above a sharp-edged horizon. I stand at the port looking out. Nothing seems strange anymore. I've lived here all my life. The gravity is settling in my bones; I no longer stumble as I go over the crater lip.
The oxygen in my tanks will take me anywhere. Give me hydrogen and you'll find me on Luna, selling my monopoles without benefit of a middleman. But it comes slowly. I can get hydrogen only by carrying water here in the base 0-tanks and then electrolyzing it into the fuel-cooling tank, where it liquifies.
The desert is empty except for a strange rosy cloud that covers one arm of horizon. Dust? Probably. I heard the wind singing faintly through my helmet as I returned to the ship. Naturally the sound can't get through the hull.
The desert is empty.
I can't repair the bubble. Today I found four more rips before giving up. They must circle the bubble all the way round. One man couldn't have done it. Two men couldn't.
It looks like Martians. But where are they?
They could walk on the sand, if their feet were flat and broad and webbed... and there'd be no footprints. The dust hides everything. If there were cities here the dust must have covered them ages ago. The mummy wouldn't have shown webbing; it would have been worn away.
Now it's starlessly black outside. The thin wind must have little trouble lifting the dust. I doubt it will bury me. Anyway the ship would rise to the surface.
Gotta sleep.

April 27, 2112 It's oh-four-hundred by the clock, and I haven't slept at all. The sun is directly overhead, blinding bright in a clear red sky. No more dust storm.
The Martians exist. I'm sure of it. Nobody else was left to murder the base.
But why don't they show themselves?
I'm going to the base, and I'm taking the log with me.

I'm in the village square. Oddly enough, it was easier making the trip in sunlight. You can see what you're stepping on, even in shadow, because the sky diffuses the light--a little, like indirect lighting in a dome city.
The crater lip looks down on me from all sides, splintered shards of volcanic glass. It's a wonder I haven't cut my suit open yet, making that trip twice a day.
Why did I come here? I don't know. My eyes feel rusty, and theres too much light. Mummies surround me, with faces twisted by anguish and despair, and with fluids dried on their mouths. Blowout is an ugly death. Ten mummies here, and one by the edge of town, and one in the admin building.
I can see all of the crater lip from here. The buildings are low bungalows, and the square is big. True, the deflated bubble distorts things a little, but not much.
So. The Martians came over the lip in a yelling swarm or a silent one, brandishing sharp things. Nobody would have heard them if they yelled.
But ten men were in a position to see them.
Eleven men. There's a guy at the edge... no, they might have come from the other direction. But still, ten men. And they just waited here? I don't believe it.
The twelfth man. He's half into a suit. What did he see that they didn't?
I'm going to go look at him.

By God, I was right. He's got two fingers on a zipper, and he's pulling down. He's not half into a suit, he's half out of it!
No more goblins.
But who cut the dome?
The hell with it. I'm sleepy.

April 28, 2112 A day and a half of log to catch up on.
My cooling tank is full, or nearly. I'm ready to try the might of the goldskins again. There's air enough to let me take my time, and less chance of a radar spotting me if I move slowly. Goodbye, Mars, lovely paradise for the manic-depressive.
That's not funny. Consider the men in the base.
Item: it took a lot of knives to make those slits.
Item: everyone was inside.
Item: no Martians. They would have been seen.
Therefore the slits were made from inside. If someone was running around making holes in the bubble, why didn't someone stop him?
It looks like mass suicide. Facts are facts. They must have spread evenly out around the dome, slashed, and then walked to the town square against a driving wind of breathing-air roaring out behind them. Why? Ask 'em. The two who aren't in the square may have been dissenters; if so, it didn't help them.
Being stuck at the bottom of a hole is not good for a man. Look at the insanity records on Earth.
I am now going back to a minute-to-minute log. 1120 Ready to prime drive. The dust won't hurt the fusion tube, nothing could do that, but backblast might damage the rest of the ship. Have to risk it. 1124 The first shot of plutonium didn't explode. Priming again. 1130 The drive's dead. I don't understand it. My instruments swear the fusion shield is drawing power, and when I push the right button the hot uranium gas sprays in there. What's wrong?
Maybe a break in the primer line. How am I going to find out? The primer line's way down there under the dust. 1245 I've sprayed enough uranium into the fusion tube to make a pinch bomb. By now the dust must be hotter than Washington.
How am I going to repair the primer line? Lift the ship in my strong, capable hands? Swim down through the dust and do it by touch? I haven't anything tha'll do a welding job under ten feet of fine dust.
I think I've had it.
Maybe there's a way to signal the goldskins. A big, black SOS spread on the dust... if I could find something black to spread around. Have to search the base again. 1900 Nothing in the town. Signaling devices in plenty, for suits and Marsbuggies and orbital ships, but only the laser was meant to reach into space. I can't fix a seventy-year-old comm laser with spit and wire and good intentions.
I'm going off minute-to-minute. There'll be no takeoff.