"Manly Wade Wellman - Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wellman Manly Wade)

the human race, an evolutionary development."
 "What I have seen suggests that something of the sort has happened on Mars, over a long period of
time. You saw them, Challenger. Those oval bodies must house massive brains. And their limbs, two
tufts of tentacles. Might these not be a latter-day development of two hands?"
"That is brilliant, Holmes!" Challenger's fist smote the table so heavily that the crystal rocked. "You
may well have the right of it," and he began to scribble again as he talked. "Specialized development of
the head and the hands, Nature's two triumphs of the su-perior intellect. Yes, and a corresponding
diminution of other organs, less necessary to their way of lifeтАФatrophy of the lower limbs, for instance,
as has occurred with the whale." He looked up again. "Truly, Holmes, I begin to think that you would
have done well to devote yourself to the pure sciences."
Holmes smiled. "Instead of devoting myself to life and its complexities? I have trained myself to the
science of deduction, which develops an ability to ob-serve and to organize observations."
Challenger cocked his great head. "I must repeat, Holmes, we must keep these matters to ourselves
for the present. If you will let me develop my reasons for insistingтАФ"
"No, permit me to offer one of my deductions," put in Holmes. "You hesitate to confront your
fellow-scientists lest they jeer at you, charge you with reckless judgments, even with charlatanism."
Challenger's stare grew wider. "I may have hinted something like that, but your interesting
rationalization is perfectly correct."
"It offered me no difficulty," said Holmes. "In my ledgers at home, under the letter C, are several
news-paper accounts that deal with your career. One of the most interesting of them describes
your emphatic resignation in 1893 as Assistant Keeper of the Com-parative Anthropology Department
at the British Museum. There was considerable notice, with quotations, of your sharp differences with the
museum heads."
"Oh, that." Challenger gestured ponderously. "That is water under the bridge, of a particularly noisome
sort. At any rate, I have not quarreled with you. Now, suppose we ask my wife to give us some tea, and
then we will return to our observations here."
Tea was a pleasant relaxation, and Mrs. Challenger proved a charming hostess. Half an hour later, the
two were in the study again, their heads draped with the black cloth. They gazed at what the crystal
showed them of the rooftop, the masts, the lawn below, and the strange creatures that moved here and
there. Re-peatedly they saw different Martians leave the ground to fly. Finally one of them discarded its
wings in their sight. Challenger uttered a loud exclamation.
"You are right, Holmes!" he cried. "The wings are artificial. I am fully convinced."
"Which disposes of them as sexual characteristics," said Holmes.
"Yes, of course. And I can observe in them no physical differences such as denote sexual differences
to the zoologist." He breathed deeply. "But why was this crystal sent here to earth?"
"And how?" asked Holmes in his turn.
Challenger threw back the cloth. "By some strange method we cannot understand, any more than
African savages understand a railroad train."
"For what purpose?"
"Manifestly to watch us," said Challenger. "It was a triumph of extraterrestrial science, sending it thirty
million miles or more across space."
"If it could cross space, might not living Martians follow suit?"
"An expedition here?" said Challenger. "For what purpose?"
"I wonder," said Holmes slowly. "I wonder."
 4


Their observations that day, and on subsequent days throughout December and on into 1902,
developed their awareness of that strange distant, shifting Martian scenery. Holmes found himself
involved in several crim-inal investigations, two of them in connection with Scotland Yard, but when he