"G. Stanley Weinbaum - The Best of Stanley G Weinbaum" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weinbaum Stanley G)

and when I started to run, he realized that I saw something different and was warned. Or perhaps the
dream-beast can only project a single vision, and Tweel saw what I saw - or nothing. I couldn't ask him.
But it's just another proof that his intelligence is equal to ours or greater.'
'He's daffy, I tell you!' said Harrison. 'What makes you think his intellect ranks with the human?'
'Plenty of things! First the pyramid-beast. He hadn't seen one before; he said as much. Yet he
recognized it as a dead-alive automaton of silicon.'
'He could have heard of it,' objected Harrison. 'He lives around here, you know.'
'Well how about the language? I couldn't pick up a single idea of his and he learned six or seven
words of mine. And do you realize what complex ideas he put over with no more than those six or seven
words? The pyramid monster - the dream-beast! In a single phrase he told me that one was a harmless
automaton and the other a deadly hypnotist. What about that?'
'Huh!' said the captain.
'Huh if you wish! Could you have done it knowing only six words of English? Could you go even
further, as Tweel did, and tell me that another creature was of a sort of intelligence so different from ours
that understanding was impossible - even more impossible than that between Tweel and me?'
'Eh? What was that?'
'Later. The point I'm making is that Tweel and his race are worthy of our friendship. Somewhere on
Mars - and you'll find I'm right - is a civilization and culture equal to ours, and maybe more than equal.
And communication is possible between them and us; Tweel proves that. It may take years of patient
trial, for their minds are alien, but less alien than the next minds we encountered - if they are minds.'
'The next ones? What next ones?'
'The people of the mud cities along the canals.' Jarvis frowned, then resumed his narrative. 'I thought
the dream-beast and the silicon-monster were the strangest beings conceivable, but I was wrong. These
creatures are still more alien, less understandable than either and far less comprehensible than Tweel, with
whom friendship is possible, and even, by patience and concentration, the exchange of ideas.
'Well,' he continued, 'we left the dream-beast dying, dragging itself back into its hole, and we moved
toward the canal. There was a carpet of that queer walking-grass scampering out of our way, and when
we reached the bank, there was a yellow trickle of water flowing. The mound city I'd noticed from the
rocket was a mile or so to the right and I was curious enough to want to take a look at it.
'It had seemed deserted from my previous glimpse of its and if any creatures were lurking in it - well,
Tweel and I were both armed. And by the way, that crystal weapon of Tweel's was an interesting device;
I took a look at it after the dream-beast episode. It fired a little glass splinter, poisoned, I suppose, and I
guess it held at least a hundred of 'em to a load. The propellant was steam - just plain steam!'
'Shteam!' echoed Putz. 'From vot come, shteam?'
'From water, of course! You could see the water through the transparent handle and about a gill of
another liquid, thick and yellowish. When Tweel squeezed the handle there was no trigger - a drop of
water and a drop of the yellow stuff squirted into the firing chamber, and the water vaporized-POP! -
like that. It's not so difficult; I think we could develop the same principle. Concentrated sulfuric acid will
heat water almost to boiling, and so will quicklime, and there's potassium and sodium -
'Of course, his weapon hadn't the range of mine, but it wasn't so bad in this thin air, and it did hold as
many shots as a cowboy's gun in a Western movie. It was effective, too, at least against Martian life; I
tried it out, aiming at one of the crazy plants, and darned if the plant didn't wither up and fall a part! That's
why I think the glass splinters were poisoned.
'Anyway, we trudged along toward the mud-heap city and I began to wonder whether the city
builders dug the canals. I pointed to the city and then at the canal, and Tweel said 'No - no - no!' and
gestured toward the south. I took it to mean that some other race had created the canal system, perhaps
Tweel's people. I don't know; maybe there's still another intelligent race on the planet, or a dozen others.
Mars is a queer little world.
'A hundred yards from the city we crossed a sort of road - just a hard-packed mud trap, and then,
all of a sudden, along came one of the mound builders!