"Niven, Larry - How The Heroes Die" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

To their right was the crater wall. And -Carter looked again to be sure-there was a silhouette on the rim, a man-shaped shadow against the red sky. With one hand it balanced something tall and thin.

"A Martian," Carter said softly. Without thinking he turned his buggy to climb the wall. Two flares exploded in front of him, a second apart, and he frantically jammed the tiller bar hard left.:

"God damn it, Alf! That was a Martian! We've got to go after it!"

The silhouette was gone. No doubt the Martian had run for its life when it saw the flares.

Alf said nothing. Nothing at all. And Carter rode on, past the crater, with a murderous fury building in him.

It was eleven o'clock. The tips of a range of hills were pushing above the western horizon.

"I'm just curious," Alf said, "but what would you have said to that Martian?"

Carter's voice was tight and bitter. "Does it matter?"

"Yah. The best you could have done was scare him. When we get in touch with the Martians, we'll do it just the way we planned."

Carter ground his teeth. Even without the accident of Lew Harness's death, there was no telling how long the translation plan would take. It involved three steps: sending pictures of the writings on the crematory wells and other artifacts to Earth, so that computers could translate the language; writing messages in that language to leave near the wells where Martians would find them; and then waiting for the Martians to make a move. But there was no reason to

believe that the script on the wells wasn't from more than one language, or from the same language as it had changed over thousands of years. There was no reason to assume the Martians would be interested in strange beings living in a glorified balloon, regardless of whether the invaders knew how to write. And could the Martians read their own ancestors' script?

An idea . . . "You're a linguist," said Carter.

No answer.

"Alf, we've talked about whether the town needed Lew, and we've talked about whether the town needs me. How about you? Without you we'd never get the well-script translated."

"I doubt that. The Cal Tech computers are doing most of the work, and anyhow I left notes. But so what?"

"If you keep chasing me you'll force me to kill you. Can the town afford to lose you?"

"You can't do it. But I'll make you a deal if you want. It's eleven now. Give me two of your 0-tanks, and we'll go back to town. We'll stop two hours from town, leave your buggy; and you'll ride the rest of the way tied up in the air bin. Then you can stand trial."

"You think they'll let me off?"

"Not after the way you ripped the bubble open on your way out. That was a blunder, Jack."

"Why don't you just take one tank?" If Alf did that, Carter would get back with two hours to spare. He knew, now, that he would have to wreck the bubble. He had no alternative. But Alf would be right behind him with the flare gun . . .

"No deal. I wouldn't feel safe if I didn't know you'd run out of air two hours before we got back. You want me to feel safe, don't you?"

It was better the other way. Let Alf turn back in an hour. Let Alf be in the bubble when Carter returned to tear it open.

"Carter turned him down," said Timmy. He hunched over the radio, holding his earphones with both hands, listening with every nerve for voices which had almost died into the distance.

"He's planning something," Gondot said uneasily.

"Naturally," said Shute. "He wants to lose Alf, return to the bubble, and wreck it. What other hope has he?"