"Oltion-PyramidHoax" - читать интересную книгу автора (Oltion Jerry)

Muriel looped and banked the plane through an Immelmann turn, taking them back
alongside the face they'd nearly smacked into. Sure enough, it was smooth as a
stretch of beach at low tide.

She banked the plane tight around the edge, but the next face was just as
smooth. Once more with the same result, then she continued around until she was
aimed at the next pyramid.

It, too, was smooth.

"I know we etched this one," she said. "I remember that little crater down there
at the base of it."

"Yeah?" David asked. "Then what happened to the lines? Did little Martians come
out and patch them up today?"

"Maybe," she said. "Do me a favor and aim the penetration radar at it when I
swing us around."

"What, you think it's hollow?"

"I don't know what it is, but something funny's going on, and that's one thing
we can check pretty easily."

"True enough," said David. He turned on the radar unit, and while he set it for
maximum penetration he said, "We should have thought of doing this last night."

She laughed. "Are you kidding? We were so intent on setting up a big find, we
forgot to look for a real one."

David laughed with her. "God, who'd have believed it? The tabloid writers were
right. This is where all the action's at on Mars."

"Maybe. Get ready, we're coming up on it."

The plane swept past a few hundred meters from the pyramid, but David didn't
look up from the radar screen. Sure enough, the cone-shaped image was darkest at
the edges, and nearly transparent in the middle.

"Jesus, it's only a few meters thick," he said. "There's no way that thing's
built out of rock. It's got to be something else, with a layer of rock and dirt
over the top."

"Just like our dome," Muriel said. She banked the plane and began circling.

David looked out at the sharp triangles against the night sky. "What, like a
radiation shield?" he asked. "Why would Martians need a radiation shield? They
evolved here, didn't they?"

Muriel shrugged. "There used to be water here, and more atmosphere. Maybe they