"E. C. Tubb - Dumarest 08 - Veruchia" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tubb E. C)

Dumarest wondered at her interest. Was it an attempt to make casual conversation or
was it something deeper? She looked harmless enough, a young girl, a student
perhaps, busy widening her education, but appearances could be deceptive..

"It was raining," he said. "The museum offered shelter. And you?"

"I've nothing better to do." Her voice fell a little, gained a slight huskiness. "And you
can meet such interesting people in a museum." Her hand slipped through his arm
and held it close. Through her clothing he could feel the cage of her ribs, the feverish
heat of her body. "Shall we catch up with the others or have you had enough?"

"And if I have?"

"There are more things to do on a rainy evening than look at the past." She paused
and added, meaningfully, "More pleasant and just as educational. Well?"

"The guide is waiting," he said, and pulling his arm free strode down the chamber.

The man had halted before a cleared space ringed with a barrier of soft ropes curling
from stanchions. One hand rested on a buttoned pedestal, the other was raised in a
theatrical gesture.

"Your attention," he said as Dumarest, followed by the girl, joined the party. "What
you are about to see is a true mystery for which even I have no explanation. First I
will permit you to feast your eyes and then I will tell you what it is you see." He
paused, a showman captivating his audience, then firmly pressed the button.
"Behold!"
Later the balm of time and weather would soften the bleakness, rounding edges and
blurring harsh contours, casting a net of vegetation over the place so that the ragged
outlines would merge into the landscape and the ruins be transformed into an
intriguing irregularity. But now the rawness was like a blow: a jumbled pile of
desolation naked to the lavender sky, the tortuous striations of savage color stark
against a somber background; the exposed entrails of a beast stricken with the blind
fury of relentless destruction.

A city, thought Dumarest, like a machine, like a man, showed the agony of its death.

He stepped forward and felt the soft impact of the barrier against his thighs, blinking
as he remembered that this was illusion, but the hologram was so lifelike that it
deluded even as to scale. It was hard to remember that these were not real ruins a
short distance away, that they need not even look exactly as they seemed.

Thickly he said, "Korotya?"

"The same." The guide sounded surprised. "An unusual sight as I think you will all
agree, and one of the mysteries of Selend. No one knows how destruction came to
this place. Even the existence of the city was unsuspected though there had been
rumors. The site is unfit for husbandry and so attracted no settlers. Hunters must
have stumbled on it from time to time but, if so, they never reported having found it.
The assumption is that the inhabitants made sure they could not."