"Doris Piserchia - A Billion Days of Earth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piserchia Doris)

"I know about it, and Trop will, too, shortly."
"What do you mean?"
"He and I made a deal. He's going to give me his ego and in return I'm giving him the lowdown on the Effu. He'll be
famous once he gets that paper finished."
"You can't!" Blok's face was red. "I've been hunting the Effu's genealogy for ten years. That snake is mine!"
"How can something extinct for ten thousand years be yours? Don't be a hog."
"But not Trop! He's insufferable!"
"You have to admit he has a lot of courage. Imagine someone handing over his ego in exchange for the genealogy of
every snake that every lived? And I mean every snake. Trop will be omniscient. But, still, the ego is a very personal
thing and shouldn't be given to everyone who comes along."
"Omniscient!" Horror was in every line of Blok's face.
"Yes. Incidentally, the Effu didn't pass away because he ran out of uranium and starved to death."
"He did!"
"He lived too homogeneously, dropped the eggs in the same old places. By and by, the area became volcanic and Effu
didn't have sense enough to move."
Blok's jaw was slack but his eyes were hot. "What does that mean?"
Sheen grew nails on his tare-paws, examined them. "Those eggs had extremely thin shells."
"Go on."
"Suppose you laid a thin-shelled egg on a slice of shale, and then suppose you hammered gently on its bottom side?"
"Good God, they cracked! The rumbling broke them!"
"Elementary."
Cried Blok, "Ha, that damned Trop can climb a tree! My paper will beat his into print by at least a week."
"Shame on you. But then it doesn't matter if you cheat. The Effu wasn't much compared to the Kubu."
"The Kubu!" Blok stamped his feet "You can't do it You can't tell Trop about the Kubu."
"That's more significant than measly old Effu."
"Wait, wait, just hold on a goddamn minute." Blok wiped his dripping brow, groaned and rolled his eyes sky-ward.
"You can't do it. He'd be a hero."
The Professor was his own special kind of fool. After shivering and trembling and giving the situation some thought,
he calmed down and even managed to sound casual. "Keep your blamed picture and your paradise. I don't care if you
make Trop famous. I know what he is, and if others don't realize it, they deserve whatever they get."
"I wasn't trying to hurt you," said Sheen.
"Well, once he gives you his ego he won't do any more interfering. He'll be out of my hair. I can relax and indulge
myself in interesting hobbies."
"You have hobbies?"
Blok waved a careless arm. His breathing was almost back to normal. "I go in for genealogy of a very personal type.
What I really want to do is trace my lineage back four or five hundred years. I've made a small contribution to the
world. Somewhere back in time were unique people who made me what I am. I want to find proof . . . well, I just want to
know who they were. I take pride in them."
Sheen writhed in anticipation. "How will you begin your research?"
"I already have. I'm a sixth-generation Easterner. My great, great, great-grandfather was one of the pioneers who came
over on the Chaos Queen. It was the first train to run out here from the West."
"Hmm, yes, I know of the Chaos Queen," Blok smiled. "What a genealogist does is tramp through graveyards and read
headstones. Mostly, that's what he does. There are courthouse records, but too many times you're told the place
burned down with all the records destroyed. The graveyards are the best bet, and they aren't bad spots. I take my
lunch and spend the day." "Sounds like a picnic."
"Not exactly. Unfortunately, I'm running out of graveyards. In fact, I'm just marking time. The graves I need are fifteen
thousand miles across the desert, and I haven't a hope of making the trip. I'd need at least two months and I have a job
that allows me twenty days off a year."
"You don't need to make the trip. I can show you your genealogy back to Adam." "Who's he?"
"Mythical father of the human race. Of which you ain't a member."