"Tloh05" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry & Pournelle)
"Maybe it swam over," Sylvia said in a small voice.
"But there's nothing here now."
"Maybe it swam back."
Jerry stared at the image for a long moment, then shook his head uneasily. "We'd better hope to hell that that's just exactly what it did."
The pterodon beat its leathery brown wings in slow motion, craning its claw-hammer head to skaw displeasure at the humming, hovering intruder in its domain. Frightened at first, it had lost some of its natural caution, spiraling closer and closer to the thing, trying to decide if it posed a threat. Suddenly the bulbous head of the intruder erupted in light, turning dusk into midday burning brighter than Tau Ceti at its height. Blinded, the pterodon cawed and reversed its arc, heading for the safety of its nest, high in the crags of Mucking Great Mountain.
Cadmann chuckled and wiggled the searchlight toggle, playing the Skeeter's beams around the pond at the base of the mountain. It scanned clear, except for a few samlon near the surface. Nothing large had been near it recently: the infrared would pick up a man-sized heat trace half an hour old.
Fed by trickles of snow melt and a tributary from the southern highlands, the pond was the largest body of still water for fifty square kilometers. If there was a large carnivore in the vicinity, surely it knew of this watering hole. Perhaps it even fished for samlon here . . .
The pond stared up at him, a blind eye around the edges, dead black in the center. The water shivered as he brought the Skeeter down for a closer look. "How deep are you, fella--?"
Before the thought could congeal, his earphones buzzed. Cadmann cleared his throat into the microphone. "Weyland here. Found anything?"
It was Zack on the other end. "Not a thing, Cad. You?"
"Not yet, but--"
"We need to have Town meeting tonight. Head on in."
"I've still got a quadrant to sweep."
Cadmann could almost hear Zack counting under his breath. "Cadmann--you've already swept your entire area twice. Everyone else is in. We've been at this all day. We need to talk, and nobody wants to wait any longer."
"But--"
"I'm too tired to play martinet, Cad. Do me a favor and just come back in."
The pond stared at him. Something about it made his stomach itch with tension. He wheeled the Skeeter around for a long look at the plateau. The brambles were struggling for a foothold on the square kilometer of naked rock, and Cadmann saw that yes, a trap could . . .
Suddenly he was smiling as he climbed, spun the Skeeter around and dived toward the lights of the Colony.
There were no colorful newsreels or densely worded technical briefs displayed on the walls of the communal meal hall. There were no sharp, tangy vegetable smells, and no warm buzz of camaraderie.
A low mutter of disgust tinged with fear wound its way through the group as they faced the floating image of the dead calf, its wounds marked with flashing green labels.
Mary Ann gripped Cadmann's hand; her nails bit into his palm every time the camera zoomed in on a wound, until he carefully disengaged her hand and put it firmly in her lap.
At the head table, Zack paused in his comments to take a drink. It seemed to brace him. Cadmann wondered what exactly was in that pitcher.
"We can't be sure how much such an animal would weigh. Certainly enough to destroy any credibility the tracks by the chicken cages might have had." He peered out into the audience. "I'm afraid that that incident was a particularly unfunny prank."
Gregory Clifton handed a drowsy April to his wife, Alicia, and stood. "Zack, let's cut the crap. I worked on the computer map. Half the Colony saw the information as it was coming in. There isn't an adult here who can't interpret the technical data for himself. How about opening up the floor?"
The applause shook the room.
Zack shrugged, spreading his hands. "All right, Gregory--what's your idea?"
"We know about the pterodons. None of them get too large. But maybe there's another species of flying carnivore. Something the size of--oh, crap, let's say a California condor . . ."
There was a quick spate of derisive laughter. Jon Van Don yelled, "What the hell, why not a roc, Greg?"
Barney Carr-brayed with laughter. "Watch out for flying elephants!"
"Wing span-to-weight ratio, Greg," Stu called. "It would have to be huge to lift a calf. Much larger than a ground carnivore capable of bringing down the same size prey. And how would it evade the Skeeters?"
Greg held up his hand. "Hear me out. It wouldn't need to fly away with the calf. It could fly in, and then drag a heavy victim to a safe place. And maybe it nests up in Mucking Great Mountain--"
There was a shout from the back of the auditorium, and Andy Washington, the big black man from the engineering crew, stood. He was fighting a losing battle with an evil grin. "I say our mistake is thinking it had to be big. Maybe it's not an it. Maybe it's a them, like a herd of Marabunta army mice--"
"Something like a glassfish," Jean Patterson added. "A super-chameleon--"
"It has to be coldblooded, to evade the infrared--"
"The hell it does! There're hot springs everywhere you look!" The opinions were flying too thick to stop now, and Zack sat back, pleased and relieved by the healthly creative energy being released.
La Donna Stewart stood, tiny fists poised lightly on her hips. "Has anybody considered a borer?"
"I think we're listening to one--Ow!" There was the sound of an affectionately brisk slap as she whacked her fiance, Elliot, and the room quieted for a moment.
"I mean like a mole, or like ants or termites. This entire area could be riddled with tunnels and we'd never know it. It could operate like a trapdoor spider. Engineering should put together a seismic detector, Zack . . ."
Andy whipped out a pad of paper and started making notes to himself.
Zack Moscowitz took the opportunity to grasp control again. "A good suggestion. La Donna. All good suggestions . . ." He glared at the engineer. "Except maybe the Marabunta mice, Andy."
He touched a switch, and the grotesque skull disappeared from the wall. He chuckled darkly. "I know that some of you don't even believe in this thing. There is . . . one possibility that Rachel suggested to me. As camp psychologist she felt it was time we discussed it openly."
He took another sip from the thermos, then plunged ahead, dead serious now. "We all know about Hibernation Instability. It's no joke to any of us. Personally, I've noticed that I don't parse as well as I once did. That I need a calculator for operations that I used to do in my head. And I wonder: is that just age? Or could it be those little ice crystals that weren't supposed to form?
"We've had major memory losses, impairment of motor skills, mood swings and clinical personality disorders--all of which we've been able to handle by juggling work duty and schedules. A few cases have required chemical stabilization."
The muttering in the room had quieted. They were ahead of him, and heads nodded in anticipatory agreement.
"Maybe things have been too placid here. The crops are thriving, we've had no deaths--hell, no real injuries--"
Cadmann looked around him in the dark. A little white lie there, Zack. Ernst walked right of the cliff and broke his ankle his first week down.
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