"Arkady & Boris Strugatsky - Wanderers and Travellers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Strugatski Arkady)

live in fresh water or come out on dry land. It's all very interesting," I
continued. "As a rule, you know, sea animals only alter their mode of life
so completely during the breeding season. Then instinct forces them to go
to quite unaccustomed places. But here there is no question of breeding.
Some other instinct is at work here, more primitive, perhaps, and more
powerful. The main thing, now, for us is to trace their migration routes.
So I spend ten hours a day at the bottom of this lake. Today I marked one.
If I'm lucky, I'll mark another one or two before evening. At night they
become extraordinarily active and seize everything that comes near them.
They've even been known to attack men. But that is only at night."
Masha had turned the radio on as loud as possible and was revelling in
the mighty sound issuing from it.
"Quieter, Masha," I said, and she turned it down.
"So you mark them," said Gorbovsky. "That's interesting. How do you
do it?"
"With generators." I extracted the cartridge from the marker and
showed him an ampoule. "With pellets like these. In each one there's a
generator which can be heard under water at a distance of twenty or
thirty kilometres."
He took the ampoule carefully and examined it closely, and his face
became sad and old-looking.
"Very clever," he murmured. "Simple and clever."
He continued to twist it about in his fingers as though trying to get the
feel of it, then put it on the grass before me, and rose to his feet. His
movements had become slow and irresolute. He went to where his clothes
were lying, rummaged among them, found his trousers, and stood still,
holding them in front of him.
I was watching him with a vague feeling of unease. Masha was holding
the marker ready in her hand to show him how it was used and was also
watching Gorbovsky. The corners of her lips : were drawn down piteously.
I had noticed long ago that this sort of thing often happened to her, and
the expression of her face would take on that of the person she was
watching.
Leonid Andreyevich suddenly began to speak in a very soft voice in
mocking sort of way.
"That's funny, I must say. What a vivid analogy. For centuries they've
lain in the depths and then they rise and enter a strange hostile world.
And what drives them? An obscure primitive instinct, you say? Or a
method of assimilating information that has reached a level of unbearable
curiosity? It would surely be better for them to stop at home in the salt
waterтАФbut something draws them and draws them to the shore." He
roused himself and started putting on his trousers. His trousers were
old-fashioned and long. He hopped on one leg as he put them on. "But it's
true, isn't it, Stanislav Ivanovich, that we must think they're not ordinary
cephalopods?"
"In their own way, yes, of course," I agreed.
But he was not listening. He had turned to the receiver and was staring
at it. Masha and I stared too. The set was emitting strident discordant
signals resembling the interference caused by an X-ray apparatus. Masha
put down the marker.