"Larry Niven - Eye Of An Octopus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

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EYE 0F AN OCTOPUS

by Larry Niven



It was a well.
Henry Bedrosian and Christopher Luden bent over the lip' peering down into the jet darkness. Their balloon-tired motorcycle lay forgotten on the talcum sand, fine pink sand that stretched endlessly ,,away to the flat horizon, borrowing its color from the sky. The sky was the color of blood. It might have been a flaming Kansas sunset, but the tiny sun was still at the zenith. The translucent hewn stone of the well-mouth stood like a blasphemy in the poisonous wilderness that was Mars.
It stood four feet above the sand, roughly circular' perhaps three yards across. The weathered stones were upright blocks, a foot tall by five inches wide by perhaps a foot thick. Whatever the material of those stones' they seemed to glow with a faintly blue inner light.
"It's so human!" said Henry Bedrosian. His voice held a touch of bewildered frustration' echoed by his dark' chisel-nosed face.
Chris Luden knew what he meant. "It's natural. A well's like a lever or a wheel. There aren't many changes you can make' because it's too simple. Did you notice the shape of the bricks?"
"Yes. Odd. But they could still be man made."
"In this air? Breathing nitric oxide' drinking red fuming nitric acid? But-" Chris drew a deep breath. "Why complain? It's life, Harry! We've discovered intelligent life!"
"We've got to tell Abe."
"Right."
But it was a long moment before either moved. They stood leaning over the well' vivid green pressure suits against pink sand and dark red horizon' peering down into the blur of darkness at the bottom Then they turned and mounted the Marsmobile.
The landing vehicle stood like an upright steel ballpoint pen. Its
bottom half was three spreading legs, a restarting solid rocket, and a spacious cargo hold' two-thirds empty now. The upper half was the return-to-orbit stage. Far away across the crescent dunes was a white patch, the jettisoned drag chute.
The Marsmobile, a glorified two-seater motorcycle with big round tires and a number of special modifications, putt-putted up to a landing leg and stopped. Henry got off and climbed to the cabin to call Abe Cooper in the orbiter. Chris Luden mounted to the cargo hold and rummaged through a disorganized hash of necessities until he had a long coil of thin line, a metal bucket' and a heavy rock hammer all treated to resist the corrosive atmosphere. He dropped the objects next to the Marmobile and climbed down. "Now we'll see," h e told himself.
Henry descended the ladder. "Abe's having kittens"' he reported. "1Ie says if we don't call him every five minutes he'll come down after us. He wants to know' how old is the well?"
"So do I." Chris brandished the hammer. "We'll knock a chip off and analyze it. Let's go."
The well was a mile and a half from the ship' and not of a conspicuous color. Probably they would have lost it if they hadn't left a flag to mark it.
"Let's see how deep it is first," said Luden. He put the hammer in the bucket for a weight' tied a line to the handle and let it fall. In the eery silence of the Martian desert they waited, listening ... The rope was nearly gone when the bucket struck something. In a moment the ghost of a splash came floating up from the depths. Henry marked the line so they could measure how deep it had gone. It looked about three hundred feet. They hauled it up.
The bucket was half full of a cloudy' slightly oily fluid.
Chris handed it to his partner. "Harry, you want to take this back and analyze it?"
Henry's dark face grinned around the pointed beard. "I'll match you for it. We both know what it's gonna be."
"Sure, but it has to be done. Even." They matched fingers. Henry lost. He rode back to the ship' the bucket dangling from one hand, fluid slopping over the edge.
The stone which formed the well might have been quartz, or even
some kind of unveined marble. It had been too badly weathered, too finely scored and polished and etched by the patient sand grains' to tell what it was. Chris Luden picked a likely looking block and brought the hammer down hard on what seemed to be a crack. He did it three times.
The hammer was ruined.
Luden shifted the hammer this way and that to examine the uneven, dulled edge and flattened corners. His blue eyes held a puzzled look. He knew the government might have quibbled about the weight of a tool for the Mars Project, but never the cost or quality. Here on Mars that hammer was worth tens of thousands of dollars It must be made of some hard' durable steel alloy. Then
He cocked his head in his helmet' tasting a strange idea ...
"Harry!"
"Yeah?"
"How you doing?"
"I'm just coming in the airlock. Give me five minutes to find out that this stuff is nitric acid."
"Okay, but do me a favor. Have you got your ring?"
"The diamond horseshoe? Sure."
"Bring it back with you, outside your suit. Outside, that is."
"Now wait a minute, Chris. That's a valuable ring. Why not use our own?"
"I should have thought of that! I'll just take off my pressure suit and-Uh! Can't seem to get my helmet unfastened-"
"Stop! Stop! I get the point." There was a click as Henry's radio went off.
Luden sat down to wait.
The sun was sliding toward the horizon. They had landed shortly before sunset yesterday' so they knew how suddenly the desert could turn from pink to midnight black, and how little light the insignificant moons gave. But sundown was four hours away.
The dunes all faced the same way' perfect crescents' as regular as if hand-made. Something must shape the winds here' causing them to blow always in one direction' like Earth's trade winds. And the dune would crawl across the sands, slower than snails, following the winds.
How old were the stones against his back? If they were really-a
strange and silly thought' but Chris wouldn't have volunteered for lie Mars Project if he were not half a romantic - if they were really diamond, they must be terribly old, to be so worn by mere sand. Far older than the pyramids, and revered ancestor to the Sphinx. Maybe the race that carved those stones had since perished. Science-fiction writers often assumed an extinct Martian race. Why' perhaps the ,,ell had originally held water
"Hello, Chris?"
"Here."