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

A woman said, sharply, "Killed them, you mean?"

"Possibly, but there is no proof."

To one side a girl whispered, "It's horrible. Such destruction! And yet, in a way, it's
also magnificent. Those colors, those shapes, but howтАж ?"

"Atomics." Her companion was emphatic. "What else could have generated such
heat? See how the stone has fretted into outflung traceries? Internal pressures must
have done that, the superheated air on the interior gusting out to blast the molten
walls. The varied colors must be due to internal structures, pipes, wires,
reinforcements of diverse nature. The whole thing must have happened almost
instantaneously. A tremendous blast of heat which reduced the entire area into what
we see."

"But an entire city!" The girl echoed her disbelief. "And no one knew it was there?"

"No one," said the guide, then amended his flat statement. "Aside from the
inhabitants, of course, assuming that there were any inhabitants. All we know is that
fifty-eight years ago seismological instruments registered a shock of great
proportions. Almost at the same time reports were received of a column of flame,
oddly brief, which came from the point of disturbance. The two were obviously
connected. Later investigation discovered what you see before you. The area was
intensely radioactive and still precludes personal investigation. It will be another
century before we dare move in to commence excavations but there is little doubt as
to what we shall find."

Nothing. Circling the barrier Dumarest had no hope of anything else. The entire place
must be fused solidтАФthe buildings and the ground for miles around. There was no
hope that records would remain, not even a carving on stone, a metal block engraved
with the data he had hoped to find, certainly not a man who could tell him what he
wanted to know.

A man's voice rose, puzzled. "I still can't understand how the place could have
remained undiscovered. Surely there were flights over the area?"

"The entire area was mapped by aerial photography three times during the past two
centuries."

"And nothing was seen?"

"Nothing." The guide was emphatic. "The terrain showed only an unbroken expanse
of forest. As I said Korotya is a mystery. If there were answers to the questions
which fill your minds it would be a mystery no longer. Those ruins are fifty-eight
years old and that is the only thing we can be sure about, the only real fact we have.
All the rest is surmise. How long the city existed, who built it, who lived in it, how it
was destroyed, these are things we do not know."

Dumarest had circled the area. As he approached the rest of the party the image