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

"6.08 metres," said she in a puzzled tone. "Some service station, but
what one?"
He was listening to the signals, eyes closed and his head to one side.
"No, that's not a service station," he murmured. "It's me."
 "What?"
"It's me. I'm signalling. MeтАФLeonid Andreyevich Gorbovsky."
"W-why?"
He laughed mirthlessly.
"Why, indeed? I'd very much like to know why." He put on his shirt.
"Why should three pilots and their spaceship, after returning from their
flight EN 101-EN 2657, become the transmitters of radio-waves on 6.083
metres?"
Masha and I, of course, said nothing, and he, too, fell silent as he
fastened his sandals.
"We've been examined by doctors, we've been examined by physicists."
He straightened up and shook the sand and grass from his trousers. "They
all came to the same conclusion: it's impossible. We could have died
laughing at the sight of their astonished faces. But, believe me, it was no
laughing matter for us. Tolya Obozov gave up his holiday and flew to
Pandora. He said he preferred to radiate as far away as possible from
Earth. Walkenstein has gone to work at an under-water station. I alone
am roaming the Earth and emitting radio-waves. And all the time I'm
waiting for something. I wait and fear, fear, and wait. Do you understand
me?"
"I don't know," I said, and glanced at Masha. "You're right," he said. He
took up the receiver and thoughtfully put it against his protuberant ear.
"No one knows. It's been going on for a month, without abating and
without stopping. Wah-wee, wah-wee. Night and day. Whether we're sad
or gay. Hungry or full. At work or idle. Wah-wee... But radiation from
Tariel has decreased. Tariel is my spaceship. It's laid up now, to be on the
safe side. Its radiation interferes with the control of some aggregates on
Venus, and they're sending inquiries and getting annoyed. Tomorrow I'm
taking it somewhere further away." He straightened himself again and
slapped his thighs with his long arms. "Well, it's time for me to go.
Good-bye, and good luck to you. Good-bye, Masha. Don't worry your head
over all this. It's no simple riddle, I assure you."
He raised his hand in salute, nodded, and walked away, lanky and
awkward. By our tent he stopped and said:
"You know, do try to be as careful as you can with those septopods.
Otherwise you're marking them and marking them and it's all very
unpleasant for them." And off he went.
I lay a little while longer face downwards and then glanced at Masha.
She was still following him with her eyes. I could see at once that Leonid
Andreyevich had impressed her. But not me. I was not in the least worried
by his talk about the possibility of the possessors of Universal Reason
being immeasurably higher than ourselves. Let them be. In my opinion,
the higher they were, the less chance there was of our getting in their way.
It was like a roach who didn't care a hang for a wide-meshed net. As to
pride, humiliation, and shockтАФwe'd probably get over that. I would, at any
rate. And the fact that we were discovering and studying the Universe,