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.
‘ “Ha! Then the whole thing is a piece of humbug—a bluff, I had suspected so from the beginning. You think that by tricks—”
‘ “Again you do not understand. Why should we have any need of those guns and shells which are, after all, merely the extension of the Stone Age man’s sling and throwing flint? Intellect has no use for such uncertain toys—shells which may kill one man or one hundred men. We wish to kill no one.”
‘Sir Henry snorted again to show his contempt for such an attitude, or perhaps to be on the safe side in the event of this proving itself an extension of the bluff.
‘There was a pause, during which several more dwarfs entered and approached our instructor in a manner which revealed them as inferiors. It was explained that we should be shown round the buildings in parties.
‘ “It’s a queer thing,” said my neighbour as we rose, “but did you notice that the old boy never opened his mouth all the while he talked to us? Nor has this one.” He nodded towards the back of our guide. “Also, we know they can’t hear, yet they understand everything we say. Rum, I call it. Just you watch this fellow, now.”
‘The dwarf strode straight at the metal wall, and a space appeared before him.
‘ “Nothing queer about that,” I said. “I know plenty of doors at home which open when you tread on the mat.”
‘ “No, it’s not that. You watch next time. That bit of wall neither swung back nor slid—it just disappeared. Same thing happened when we first came in.”
‘The guide was frankly contemptuous. His was the manner of a major-domo taking the lap-dog for a walk. He threw out occasional curt references to the objects we passed. These machines were water-producers; those, food-makers. One and all were equally mysterious to most of us. We trailed blankly along, gaping as vacantly as any savage at his first radio.
‘Perhaps the dwarf was justified in his contempt, for these machines, unlike the “travellers,” did not use Lestrange batteries, and the source of power was to us as obscure as the methods of operation were unintelligible. At length we Reached a large hall which, at first glance, seemed to be a jumble of bird-cages.
‘ “Travelling machines,” came abruptly from the guide. We approached them, and he became so informative over what we, guessed to be a recent invention that contempt was momentarily forgotten. One of the two rows of dials, he explained, determined the amount of time to be travelled. It contained” seven indicators, ranging from an hour to ten thousand years. The lower row regulated the position.
‘A certain amount of interaction between the two rows was necessary. For one thing, it prevented the machine from maintaining its position in space without reference to the motion of the Earth. Within the limits set by this interaction, position could be calculated almost to a foot.
‘ “What’s that for?” asked one of the party, reaching towards a lever. As he lifted his hand the dwarf saw him, and he reeled back, crashing to the floor. Afterwards, he told us that it had felt like a tremendous blow between the eyes.
‘ “What did I tell you?” said my neighbour excitedly. “Force of mind, that’s what those people use; that’s why their hands are vestigial. Pure will-power.”
‘The dwarf seemed to hear him, for he looked towards us.
‘ “I am surprised,” he sneered, “that you even know of such a thing as will-power. I judged by your reflexes that you had only instincts.”
‘ “You are insulting,” said a voice behind me.
‘ “There are thirty of you,” he continued to sneer. “Let us see if your combined wills assist you against mine.”
‘We stared around us in amazement. The walls had gone; the machines, too—everything. There was nothing to be seen in any direction save unbroken desert.
‘ “Playin’ Aladdin’s lamp tricks,” growled my neighbour, bending down to grasp a handful of sand. The dwarf almost smiled at our confusion.
‘ “You know perfectly well where you are,” he said. “But all you can see or feel is the open desert. That’s how much all your wills are worth against mine. Try, now, to see whether you can bring the walls round you again.”
‘I suspect that it was the mind of that remarkable man, Professor Toone, which tipped the scales in our favour. For a moment, we felt the heat still beating up from the sand, then the shadowy outlines of the hall began to re-form. Slowly, from mistiness they grew more substantial; for a few seconds they began to fade again; then, in a flash, we were back indoors. The dwarf lay on the floor before us, panting.
‘ “Lord! ” said someone. “Played out like he’d run ten miles. Anyway, we’ve got some wills between us ! ”
CHAPTER FOUR
THE LAST WARNING
‘When I had been home three days, I began to understand professor Toone’s decision that the Committee should meet and discuss in Paris before scattering to report. He had made the suggestion during the flight back to Le Bourget. The alacrity of acceptance was such as to make one suspect that the delegates were so uncertain of what their reports should contain that they were eager for a few pointers.
Toone, by common consent, opened the proceedings.
‘ “Gentlemen,” he began, “each of us will be called upon in a few days to give his comments upon the results of our investigation. The questions we shall be asked will appear ridiculous, in the light of our experience, but they will not seem so ridiculous to us as will our answers to our governments. They will say: ‘What form of power supported and propelled the flyer you travelled in?’ We shall reply that we have no idea. They will be irritated.
‘ “They will ask: ‘How many of these dwarfs are there?’ We shall have to reply that we saw, at most, about fifty. They will smile. This will be followed up with: ‘What kind of armaments?’ We saw none, and have reason to believe that they possess none. ‘How many flyers?’ We saw only one. ‘What is their silvery metal?’ We do not know.
‘ “So it will go on until, with their amusement and their contempt, we shall be in danger of becoming a laughing-stock. If that, is allowed to occur, we have no hope of any warning we may give being regarded as anything but further embroidery to a great joke. Seldom, gentlemen, can any committee of investigation have produced less concrete results. Had we found great guns, strange rays, new gases, they would have listened to us. Instead, we have found a menace of pure force, beside which such weapons would be childish.
‘ “We have found this, I say; but because we cannot comprehend it, we cannot describe it. The grand total of our observation is one strange ship, one equally strange building, a few dwarfs, a number of machines reputed to be time-travellers, other unknown machinery and what our critics will call a cinematograph show. That is all we saw: we cannot tell them what we felt….
‘ “This, then, is the problem confronting us: How can we convey to a sceptical world the sensation we received of potential force? The peoples must know of that seething mental battery, that surging power of will beside which we are scarcely reasoning creatures—they must know, and they must believe. The burden of their conviction lies upon us.”
‘The conference had continued for two days. Two wasted days, they seemed to me. Speeches drifted more and more from the main issue, and gradually tended to confine themselves to suggestions for combating the menace. Again and again Professor Toone dragged the members back from their talk of tactics by his insistence that the governments must first be convinced of the need for tactics. No solution could be suggested short of the governments themselves experiencing our sensations.
‘Back home, I was sitting in a palatial office trying to convince a bored official who felt that his time was being wasted, I was growing irritated.