"Woods, Laurence - The Colossus Of Maia" - читать интересную книгу автора (Woods Laurence)

discovered and classified thousands of varieties of flora and fauna, made
studies of their life-habits. One must do something; I haven't found any
intelligent beings yet.
--IT IS DAVID'S eighteenth birthday. He is here with me tonight, or rather,
outside in the desert, sleeping. I measured him today; he lay flat on the ground
and I walked from his head to his toes with a measure. He is a little over
forty-three feet tall. In order for us to converse, he must whisper; even that
is deafening. He has to lie down for me to yell in his ear; the result is that
we do not talk much. He has succeeded in making his grain reach a height of
forty feet by selective breeding and careful planting. I shall not try this
myself as I have difficulty in harvesting my huge stalks anyway. He tells me I
am becoming old; I believe him; the hermit's life does not agree with me.
David is quite moody. He is tired of being alone, says there is no hope for him
or anything to live for. If a rescue ship did come, it could take me, but never
him. He would be unable to live anywhere except Maia, and there is no joy in
living here. He wants to commit suicide, but he will not do so because of me. I
fear for him when I am gone.
--It is over fourteen years since we have been stranded here. Earth is like a
dream. But, the time has passed quickly, now that I look back on it. I am
old--very much older than I would be on Earth, I know. Haven't been feeling well
for a long time--I have a bad cough and a dull pain in my heart. David is very
anxious about me, with me all the time. He is a regular colossus, too--over
sixty feet tall.
I fear I have not long to live. David looks up at the sky strangely, sometimes.
Especially at that tiny green star that is Earth. There is something in his
mind, but he will not tell me what it is. My chest pains again.
MICHAEL BOYER closed the book softly. "That," he whispered, "is the last entry.
There is, however, a little more.
"We must go back with Rockwell and Burton to Maia. They have just found the
book; have just read the final entry. In the cabin are to be found the notebooks
of which Richard Lyman speaks, the notebooks wherein he painstakingly and
scientifically classified the flora and fauna of the asteroid.
"They search about the cabin from a position in the air. Suddenly, behind the
cabin, Rockwell sights something. They descend; it is a cemetery. Here are
several rude mounds and improvised head pieces. On pieces of metal are scratched
names --the names of the passengers who had been killed in the first crash of
the Astrodart. Over to one side is a mound larger than the rest; just before it,
they notice long cuts in the ground. Rockwell studies one of them; it is in the
form of the letter "R". He propels himself into the air so as to look down upon
the ground, calling Burton as he does so. There, around the mound, cut in
letters six feet long, is the name RICHARD LYMAN.
"What has become of the son? They search around for a clue; at length they find
another cut in the ground--an arrow pointing out into the desert.
"Out there they come upon more writing, cut into the face of the planet in
letters ten to fifteen feet high. It is the last message of David Lyman: `Father
died yesterday; I buried him in the cemetery. I do not want to live any more;
there is nothing here for me without him. I cannot take life calmly the way he
did; I am young--but I cannot enjoy the rights of youth to companionship, love,
or adventure. Never could I be rescued; I am too large. Already, I find it hard
to breathe because of my great size and I am still growing.