Sleepers Of Mars
- Автор: Уиндем Джон Паркс Лукас Бейнон Харрис
- Год: 1977
- Язык: английский
- Год: Coronet Books/Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
- ISBN: 0340173262
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Sleepers Of Mars». Краткое содержание книги:
Of course, we are now well used to the idea of Man On The Moon, we have become blasé as to the possibilities of inter-planetary travel. But imagine two expeditions to Mars, one British, the other Russian, both in the process of discovering a mechanical race, invented and produced by the Martians as they believe their specie to be dying.
The other four novellas in this collection give further evidence of John Wyndham’s genius at invention, characterisation and sense of movement.
Gordonov had a small motor which would, he hoped, be the means of supplying the world with an entirely new form of power once he could find anybody able to make head or tail of it. He was improvising a cord sling which would enable him to take it up the rope ladder. Only Zhatkin, it seemed, had nothing to take from Mars but what he had brought. He sat unexcitedly watching the others.
Vinski straightened himself and looked round the room. ‘Is there anything-?’ he had begun, when a sound of running footsteps made him break off.
Yauadin, wearing a space-suit, but helmetless like themselves, appeared in the doorway. For a moment he looked at them. Then he singled Platavinov out from the rest. There was a look of vivid fury on his face; the semi-control he had shown before had gone, the hatred in his eyes was limitless. Platavinov stepped back involuntarily.
A flood of words broke from the Martian. Harsh, bitter-toned phrases, delivered as if they were blows. The doctor stepped back again, raising his hand as though to ward the other off. But the Martian came no nearer. Platavinov seemed utterly confounded. Once he started to expostulate in a fumbling way, but the other talked him down.
The climax came too suddenly for the rest to suspect it. Yauadin raised his right arm and pointed it at the man before him. Vinski, with immense presence of mind, flung himself upon him. But he was too late. The instant before he reached him there was a searing, soundless flash, and as the two men crashed over together, Platavinov slithered down the wall, a hole burnt through his head.
The silence that followed lasted only a few seconds. It was broken by a shout from Gordonov.
‘Look! Vinski, look! ’
He was pointing to the visi-screen. Three figures in silver space-suits were climbing the swaying ladder up the Tovaritch’s side. One stood in the open doorway above, four more on the ground at the foot of the ladder.
Vinski took in the scene at a glance. With a bound he was across the room and had snatched up his helmet.
‘Come on,’ he shouted to the others, as he made for the doorway. Gordonov, helmet also in hand, was only a few steps behind him.
Zhatkin did not move.
He remained sitting on the edge of the divan, looking at the bodies of the two men. They were both beyond hope. There was a hole right through Platavinov’s head; Yauadin’s head had cracked on the floor as he went down under Vinski’s weight.
He needed no explanation of what had occurred. More than once among the Martian’s invective he had caught the word ‘Karlet.’ Karlet, Platavinov had told them, was the name of Yauadin’s wife, with whom he had gone so hopefully to the hospital on that day so many centuries ago.
What could be more natural than that husband and wife should have laid in their containers side by side? And after that unfortunate opening of the first container—that ‘accident,’ as Platavinov had called it—they had taken the next one to it to bring back here. It was Karlet who had died in that vault, and her body had been there for Yauadin to find–-
Zhatkin looked across at the broken body. Well, at least the unhappy, twice-embittered Yauadin had peace now.
He looked back once more to the visi-screen. The last of the space-suited figures was nearing the top of the ladder now. A movement in the lower right-hand corner of the scene caught his eye. Two human figures accompanied by several scuttering machines were racing towards the rocket-ship.
Suddenly, a moment after he had noticed them, the machines came to a dead stop and froze motionless. But the two human beings kept on. Though they were too small for him to distinguish details, he knew that they were Vinski and Gordonov by the superhuman strides in which their Earthly muscles carried them over the sand.
One running figure reached the dangling ladder a little ahead of the other. He leapt at it, and began to climb like a monkey. The other was only a yard or two behind him.
The last of the earlier climbers was in the airlock now. Zhatkin saw him lean out and look down at the two Earthmen. Already the leader was halfway up the ladder. Then the man in the airlock bent down. Another moment, and ladder and climbers fell together to the ground. The outer door of the airlock closed.
Of the climbers, one—it was impossible to say which—lay where he had fallen among the loops of the ladder. The other jumped to his feet and gazed up at the towering rocket, shaking both his fists at it in impotent frenzy. It was some minutes before he noticed his companion’s plight. When he did, he went over and lifted the other man’s head.
Even at the size they were on the screen, it was clear that the helmet was smashed. Asphyxiation, if not the fall, had finished the journey for him. Slowly the survivor straightened up. Once more he looked long and steadily up the shimmering side of the rocket. Then he picked up his fallen companion and began to plod with a slow, weary step back towards the city.
There came a sudden burst of flame, fierce as a part of the Sun itself, between the flanges of the rocket. Zhatkin drew back with his hand over his smarting eyes. When he was able to look again the Tovaritch had gone. Where she had stood was a pit of fused and blackened sand. Of the man who had been carrying the other back there was no sign–-
Zhatkin sat awhile without moving. Then he sighed. His sad eyes searched slowly round the room, loitered for a space on the rifles which Vinski had dropped as he sprang at the Martian, passed on to Platavinov’s body, and then to Yauadin’s.
What would happen? he wondered. Would the Tovaritch make the journey back to Earth with her Martian crew? Or to Venus, perhaps? Or would she be lost for ever in the depths of space? He would never know.
He found himself staring at an object which lay close beside Yauadin. It looked something like an electric torch, save that it was open at the end where the glass should be. He walked slowly across and picked it up. A simple-looking little weapon, but effective, as Yauadin had shown. Apparently one operated it by pressing a neat little knob on the side.
Zhatkin looked round the room once more. He sighed again. Then he put the tube against his head and pressed the little knob.
WORLDS TO BARTER
CHAPTER ONE
THE REFUGEE FROM 2145
Outside the tall laboratory windows, the Sun shone brightly on the gardens. It was that kind of June morning when one forgets the deficiencies of our civilisation and everything seems for the best, in the best of all possible worlds. Certainly, in the minds of Professor Lestrange and myself there was no suspicion of any untoward occurrence. We had already been working for some three and a half severely practical hours.
Lestrange, in that year 1945, was not unlike the photographs, taken ten years later, which now adorn the text-books. Already, at forty, his most striking characteristics were that broad, white forehead where so many mysteries were solved, and those piercing eyes which saw so much that was hidden from ordinary men. Already his adaptations and improvements marked him for success, though he had made none of those revolutionary discoveries individual enough to be understood and acclaimed by the public. The time was yet to come when the name of Lestrange would be more familiar than that of Edison had ever been, and when his commanding face would peer out from a million printed pages.
The critical moments of our present experiment were approaching. I was attempting to fight down my rising excitement so that no trembling might show in my hands. Lestrange was, to all appearances, as calm as a frozen sea. During his work, he preserved the mien of a poker player. Not a hurried movement betrayed any anxiety as, in the silence of the long laboratory, he tested the last connections and inspected the final adjustments.