"Donald E. Wollheim - The Secret of the ninth Planet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wollheim Donald A)

Burl looked up sharply. "I'll check the Geiger counters, Dad. Something's
blocking reception, something strong and powerful to interfere with this set."
But when he returned, he had to admit be had found nothing.
When the Sun went down, they retired, for the temperature drops swiftly in the
high, thin air of the Andes.
In the rest or the world people watched their color-vision shows without
interruption. Reception was good with the Moon base, the space platforms had no
difficulty making reports, and the radio news beamed out as usual. In Lima,
there was a little static, and direct transmission with Brazil seemed partially
disrupted, but that was all.
In the following five days, the Denning expedition had managed the difficult
climb over the next range of mountains and had come down in the high plateau
valley between. In this same period, the world began to realize that the dimness
of the sky was not a temporary phenomenon.
Weather stations noted that the past few days had all been several degrees under
the average. Reports had come in that farmers were querying the unusual drop in
the temperatures at night. And astronomers, measuring the surface heat of the
Sun, came up with strange discrepancies from previous data.
One astronomer communicated with another, and a general exchange of advice
began. In a short while, a communication was laid on the desk of the President
of the United States, who scanned it and had it immediately transmitted to the
Secretary General of the United Nations. The Secretary General circulated the
report among the scientific bureaus of all member nations, and this led in turn
to a meeting of the Security Council. This meeting was held in quiet, without
benefit of newspaper reporters or audience.
There was no longer any doubt. The radiation of the Sun reaching the face of the
Earth had decreased. The facts were indisputable. Where a day should have
registered, in some places, at least 90┬░ in the Sun, a reading of only 84┬░ was
noted. Measurements definitely showed that the face of the Sun visible to man on
Earth had dimmed by just that margin.
This might not prove serious at first, but as the scientists called in by the
Security Council pointed out, it promised terrible things as the year went on. A
difference of five or ten degrees all over the Earth could mean the ruin of
certain crops, it could mean an increase in snowfall and frost that could very
rapidly destroy the economies and habitability of many places on the Earth's
teeming surface.
"But what," asked the Chairman of the Council, "is causing this decrease in
solar energy?"
This the astronomers could not answer. But they pointed to one factor. The
reports from the U.S. Moon Base did not agree with the observations from Earth.
Moon instruments claimed no decrease whatsoever in the amount of sunlight
reaching the arid, airless surface of the Earth's only satellite.
The cause was somewhere on Earth. And the Security Council requested the careful
scanning of the Earth from space platforms and the Moon to determine the center
of the trouble.
Burl Denning had not found the next valley of much interest, either. Evidence of
an Inca road over the mountain had petered out. There were signs there had been
human dwellings, but they were not Inca-- just reminders of the onetime passage
of an unknown band of primitives who had grazed their sheep, built temporary
tents, and pulled up stakes perhaps a hundred years before.