"Margaret St Clair - The Stroller" - читать интересную книгу автора (St. Clair Margaret)

"A Mocker? WhatтАФ?"
"Um-hum. You still find a few of them in the wilder parts of Venus. They're parasitic тАФahтАФentities,
that feed on the life force, as well as the flesh, of human beings. No doubt this one came aboard the ship
at Aphrodition, in that consignment of Fyella corymbs. They're invisible most of the time, so of course we
didn't suspect it."
"But how did it get here?" George demanded. "Why did it pick on Marta as a victim?"
"Well, you see the usual way a Mocker works is to select someone as a host, as a sort of base of
operations, and then range out from him whenever it wants to eat. For some reason, whenever it leaves
its host, it takes on his features and body and dresses itself in his clothes. That's what happened here.
One of the first signs that a Mocker is taking hold is a spell of amnesia, and of course that's what
happened to you, Saunders, when we were taking on cargo at Aphrodition, though I didn't realize it at
the time.
"A Mocker doesn't usually kill its host directly, but it does draw on his life force to keep itself going,
and he usually complains of feeling worn out and tired."

KAUSS halted. Marta looked down at her husband's brown suit and the ice cream slowly melting
across it.
"Please, George, pick up that stuff before it ruins your suit completely," she said automatically. And
then, to Kauss, "But what happened when you threw the plate at it? What happened? Oh, I was so
scared!"
"Yes, the Mockers are terrifying." Kauss agreed. He seemed to square his broad shoulders.
"However, at bottom they are unintelligentтАФlook at the stupidity of this one in attacking you when your
husband and I were in the next roomтАФand they are really not especially dangerous provided you know
the defense against them.
"You see, their body structure, while based on the same elements as our own, involves large
quantities of free hydrogen between the body cells. Hydrogen ignites in ordinary air with explosive
forceтАФthe end product's waterтАФand when I threw that burning stuff at the creature, the hydrogen in its
tissues exploded. It blew up. There's probably a good deal more water vapor in the air in this room than
there was before I got rid of the thing."
Kauss cleared his throat.
"There's another life form," he said with a faintly professional air, "allied to the Mocker, but with
important differences, which is far more dangerous. That's the Stroller."
"The Stroller?" Marta asked. George had put his arm around her; they were not an affectionate
couple, but the moment seemed to call for tender demonstration. "Why do they call it that?"
"No one knows, exactly. It seems to come from the creature's own name for itself, for its fondness
for taking long, long, walks."
Kauss turned the cigar in his mouth. He poked at the suit lying on the floor with the toe of his shoe.
"What does it do?" Marta queried. "Why is it so terribly dangerous?"
"The Stroller doesn't hunt a host, like the Mocker," Kauss replied. "Early in life it takes over the
identity of some human being, and it remains indistinguishable from a human being to any usual test. It's so
dangerous because there's absolutely no defense against it. No free hydrogen in its tissues. It's
indestructible."
"My!" Marta said. "Goodness!"
"It feeds, like the Mocker, on both the flesh and the life force of human beings. Fortunately"тАФ Kauss
smiledтАФ "it's very, very rare. There are probably only a few Strollers in the entire solar system, and they
reproduce only at widely separated intervals."
Once more Kauss halted and poked absently at the clothing on the floor with the toe of his boot.
"There's a peculiarity about their feeding habits," he said. "They'll go for years without feeling any
desire to eat their special food, and then something will happen which makes themтАФgreedy, and after
that they can't be stopped before they feed."