"Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. The Final Circle of Paradise (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

extension of the abstract-styled base, and with his eyes
staring at infinity through contemptuously squinting lids, was
none other than Vladimir Sergeyevitch Yurkovsky. Carved in gold
letters on the base was the legend "Vladimir Yurkovsky,
December 5, Year of the Scales."
I couldn't believe it, because they do not raise monuments
to Yurkovskys. While they live, they are appointed to more or
less responsible positions, they are honored at jubilees, they
are elected to membership in academies. They are rewarded with
medals and are honored with international prizes, and when they
die or perish; they are the subjects of books, quotations,
references, but always less and less often as time passes, and
finally they are forgotten altogether. They depart the halls of
memory and linger on only in books. Vladimir Sergeyevitch was a
general of the sciences and a remarkable man. But it is not
possible to erect monuments to all generals and all remarkable
men, especially in countries to which they had no direct
relationship and in cities where if they did visit, it was only
temporarily. In any case, in that Year of the Scales, which is
of significance only to them, he was not even a general. In
March he was, jointly with Dauge, completing the investigation
of the Amorphous Spot on Uranus. That was when the sounding
probe blew up and we all got a dose in the work section - and
when we got back to the Planet in September, he was all spotted
with lilac blotches, mad at the world, promising himself that
he would take time out to swim and get sunburned and then get
right back to the design of a new probe because the old one was
trash.... I looked at the hotel again to reassure myself. The
only out was to assume that the life of the town was in some
mysterious and potent manner highly dependent on the Amorphous
Spot on Uranus. Yurkovsky continued to smile with snobbish
superiority. Generally, the sculpture was quite good, but I
could not figure out what it was he was leaning on. The
apparatus didn't look like the probe.
Something hissed by my ear. I turned and involuntarily
sprang back. Beside me, staring dully at the monument base, was
a tall gaunt individual closely encased from head to foot in
some sort of gray scaly material and with a bulky cubical
helmet around his head. The face was obscured behind a glass
plate with holes, from which smoke issued in synchronism with
his breathing. The wasted visage behind the plate was covered
with perspiration and the cheeks twitched in frantic tempo. At
first I took him for a Wanderer, then I thought that he was a
tourist executing a curative routine, and only finally did I
realize that I was looking at an Arter.
"Excuse me," I said "Could you please tell me what sort of
monument this is?"
The damp face contorted more desperately. "What?" came the
dull response from inside the helmet.
I bent down.