"Russell, Eric Frank - Men, Martians And Machines" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russell Eric Frank)

Can you tie that? I was still stupefied by the queer tricks of some professions when I arrived at the scene of the uproar at the top of the starboard gangway. McNulty was bawling out the Martians. The latter had emerged from their especial quarters where air was kept down to the three pounds pressure to which they were accustomed. They were now outside in the alien and objectionable atmosphere.
Somebody went solemnly down the gangway bearing Earthward an enormous vase of violently clashing colours and exceedingly repulsive shape. The Martian chorus of protest arose crescendo. There were shrill chirrups and much snaking of angry tentacles. I gathered that the porcelain monstrosity was Kli Morg's chess trophy, the Martian notion of a championship cup. It was in vile taste from the Terrestrial viewpoint. Anyway, the skipper's orders were orders and the abomination stayed on Earth.
Next instant the siren howled its thirty seconds warning and all those still out of harness raced for safety. The way those Martians ceased their oratory and beat it was something worth seeing.
I got myself fixed in the nick of tune. The air-locks closed. Whooom! A giant hand tried to force my cranium down into my boots and temporarily I passed out.
The world swelling rapidly before our bow was little bigger than Terra. Its sunlit face had a mixture of blacks, reds and silvers rather than the old familiar browns, blues and greens. It was one of five planets circling a sun smaller and whiter than our own. A small, insignificant group of asteroids shared this grouping but we had no difficulty in cutting through their orbits.
I don't know which star that sun was supposed to be. Jay Score told me it was a minor luminary in the region of Bootes. We had picked on it because it was the only one in this area with a planetary family and we'd selected the second planet because its present position stood in nice, convenient relationship with our line of flight.
At that, we were going a lot too fast to circle it and submit it to close inspection before landing in some choice spot. We were striking its orbit at a tangent with the planet immediately ahead. The landing was to be a direct one, a hawklike dive with a muffled prayer and no prancing around the mulberry bush.
The way Flettner's unorthodox notions went into action was again something to bring one's heart into one's gullet before it could be swallowed back. I believe that the vessel could have done even better had its functioning not been handicapped by the limits of human endurance. McNulty must have gained the measure of those limits with astonishing accuracy, for the deceleration and drop brought me down alive and kickingЧbut I had the deep impression of my harness all over my abused carcass for a week.
Reports from the lab said the air was twelve pounds and breathable. We drew lots for first out. McNulty and all the government experts lost. That was a laugh! Kli Yang's name came first out of the hat, then an engineer named Brennand was lucky, followed by Jay Score, Sam Hignett and me.
One hour was our limit. That meant we couldn't go much more than a couple of miles from the Marathon. Spacesuits weren't needed. Kli Yang could have used his head-and-shoulder contraption to enjoy his customary three pounds pressure but he decided that he could tolerate twelve for a mere hour without becoming surly. Hanging binoculars around our necks, we strapped on needle-ray guns. Jay Score grabbed a tiny two-way radiophone to keep us in touch with the vessel.
"No fooling, men," warned the skipper as we went through the air-lock. "See all you can and be back within the hour."
Kli Yang, last through the lock, ran his saucer eyes over the envious ship's company, said, "Somebody had better go wake Sug Farn and tell him the fleet's in port." Then four of his ten tentacles released their hold and he dropped to ground.
My, was that alien surface hard! Here it shone black and glassy, there it was silvery and metallic with patches of deep crimson appearing in odd places. I picked up a small lump of silvery outcrop, found it amazingly heavy; solid metal as far as I could tell.
I tossed the lump through the open door of the air-lock so that they could get busy analysing it, and at once Kli Morg stuck out a furious head, goggled his eyes at the inoffensive Kli Yang and remarked, "A blow on the cranium is not funny. The fact that you are now with a bunch of Terrestrials doesn't mean that you have to be equally childish."
"Why, you amateur pawn-pusher," began Kli Yang, speaking with considerable warmth. "I'd have you knowЧ "
"Shut up!" snapped Jay Score authoritatively. He started off toward the setting sun, his long, agile legs working as though intent on circumnavigating the globe. The radio swung easily from one powerful hand.
We followed in single file. In ten minutes he was half a mile ahead and waiting for us to catch up.
"Remember, long brother, we're only flesh and blood," complained Brennand as we reached the emergency pilot's huge, efficient figure.
"Not me," denied Kli Yang. "Thank Rava, my kind are not made of so sickening a mess." He emitted a thin whistle of disgust, made swimming motions with his tentacles through air four times as thick as that of Mars. "I could row a boat!"
Our progress was slightly slower after that. Down into a deep, shadowy valley, up the other side and over the crest. No trees, no shrubs, no birds, no other sign of life. Nothing but the black, silver and red semimetallic ground, a range of blue veiled mountains in the far distance and the gleaming cylinder of the Marathon behind us.
A swiftly flowing river ran down the centre of the next valley. Reaching it, we filled a flask to take back to the lab. Sam Hignett risked a taste, said it was coppery but drinkable. The rushing waters were faintly blue with darker shades swirling in their depths. The banks were of ground considerably softer than the surface we'd just traversed.
Sitting on the nearer bank, we contemplated the torrent which was much too swift and deep to cross. After a while a headless body came floating and bobbing along.
The mutilated corpse vaguely resembled that of an enormous lobster. It had a hard, crimson, chitinous shell, four crablike legs, two lobsterish pincers and was half as big again as a man. Its neck was a raw, bloodless gash from which white strings dangled. What the missing head had looked h'ke we could only imagine.
Full of mute menace, the cadaver turned and rolled past while we sat in a fascinated row and watched it, our eyes going from right to left and following it until it swept round the distant bend. What filled our minds was not the question of how the head looked, but who had removed it and for what reason. Nobody said anything.
This gruesome sight had barely departed in the grip of the rapid current when we got first evidence of life. Ten yards to my right a hole showed in the soft bank. A creature slithered out of it, went to the brink of the water, drank in delicate sips.
Four-legged, with a long triangular tail, it resembled an iguana more than anything else. Its skin was black with an underlying sheen of silver like shot silk. Its pupils were shiny black slots in silvery eyeballs. Length: about six feet, including tail.
Having swallowed its fill, this thing turned round to go back, saw us and stopped abruptly. I fingered my needle-ray just in case it had combative ideas. It examined us carefully, opened its jaws in a wide gape that revealed a great, jet-black gullet and double rows of equally black teeth. Several times it favoured us with this demonstration of biting ability before it made up its mind what to do next. Then, so help me, it crept up the bank, joined the end of our row, sat down and stared at the river.
I have never seen a crazier spectacle than we must have presented at that moment. There was Jay Score, huge and shining, his craggy features the colour of ancient leather. Next, Sam Hignett, our Negro surgeon, his teeth gleaming in bright contrast with his ebon features. Then Brennand, an undersized white Terrestrial sitting beside Kli Yang, a rubber-skinned ten-tentacled, goggle-eyed Martian. Next, me, a middle-aged, greying Terrestrial and, finally, this black and silver alien wottizit. All of us glumly contemplating the river.
Still nobody said anything. There didn't seem anything adequate to say. We stared, the creature stared, all of us as phlegmatic as could be. I thought of young Wilson and how preciously he'd have mothered a plate with this scene on it. Pity he wasn't there to record it for all time. Then as we watched another body came floating down, one like the first. No head.
"Somebody can't be popular," remarked Brennand, fed up with the silence.
"They're independent," informed the iguana, solemnly. "Like me."
"Eh?"
Five people never stood up with greater promptitude or timed an ejaculation so perfectly.
"Stick around," advised the lizard. "Maybe you'll see something." It blinked at Brennand, then slithered back into its hole. Silver gleamed along its black tail as it went down.
"Well," said Brennand, breathing heavily, "can you pin your ears to that!" A dazed look in his eyes, he went to the hole, squatted on his heels and bawled, "Hey!"
"He isn't in," responded the thing from somewhere in the depths.
Licking his lips, Brennand gave us the piteous glance of a hurt spaniel, then inquired somewhat insanely, "Who isn't in?"
"Me," said the lizard.
"Did you hear what I heard?" demanded the flabbergasted Brennand, standing up and staring at us.
"You heard nothing," put in Jay Score before any of us could reply. "It didn't speak. I was watching it closely and its mouth never moved." His hard, brilliant eyes looked into the hole. "It was thinking purely animal
thoughts which you received telepathically and, of couse, translated into human terms. But because you are not normally receptive of telepathic thought-forms, and because you have not previously encountered anything that broadcasts on the human waveband, you thought you heard it talking."
"Stick around," repeated the lizard. "But not around my burrow. I don't like the publicity. It's dangerous."
Moving away, Jay picked up the radiophone. "I'll tell them about the bodies and ask if we can explore a mile or two upstream."
He moved a switch. The instrument promptly emitted a noise like Niagara in full flow. Nothing else could be heard. Changing to transmission, he called repeatedly, switched back and was rewarded only by the sound of a mighty waterfall.
"Static," suggested Sam Hignett. "Try lower down the band."
The radio had only a limited bandwidth but Jay turned all the way across it. The waterfall faded out, was gradually replaced by an eerie, dithering sound like that of a million grasshoppers yelling bitter-bitter-bitter. That gave way to a high, piercing whistle followed by another waterfall.
"I don't like this," commented Jay, switching off. "There is far too much on the air for what looks like an empty world. We are going back. Come onЧlet's move fast."
Lifting the radiophone he trudged rapidly up the bank and over the crest. His mighty figure looked like that of some old-time giant as it became silhouetted against the evening sky.
He put on the pace, making it a gruelling task to keep up with him. We needed no urging. Much of his uneasiness had communicated itself to us. Those decapitated bodiesЧ
McNulty heard us through, sent for Steve Gregory and asked him to give the ether a whirl. Steve beat it to the radio room, came back in a few minutes. His eyebrows were tangled.