"Adams, Douglas -- Young Zaphod" - читать интересную книгу автора (Adams Douglas)

Young ZaphodYoung Zaphod Plays It Safe
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A Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galxy Short Story

by Douglas Adams

Extracted from
The Utterly Utterly Merry Comic Relief Christmas Book
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A large flying craft moved swiftly across the surface of an astoundingly
beautiful sea. From mid-morning onwards it plied back and forth in great
widening arcs, and at last attracted the attention of the local islanders, a
peaceful, sea-food loving people who gathered on the beach and squinted up into
the blinding sun, trying to see what was there.
Any sophisticated knowledgeable person, who had knocked about, seen a few
things, would probably have remarked on how much the craft looked like a filing
cabinet - a large and recently burgled filing cabinet lying on its back with its
drawers in the air and flying.
The islanders, whose experience was of a different kind, were instead struck by
how little it looked like a lobster.
They chattered excitedly about its total lack of claws, its stiff unbendy back,
and the fact that it seemed to experience the greatest difficulty staying on the
ground. This last feature seemed particularly funny to them. They jumped up and
down on the spot a lot to demonstrate to the stupid thing that they themselves
found staying on the ground the easiest thing in the world.
But soon this entertainment began to pall for them. After all, since it was
perfectly clear to them that the thing was not a lobster, and since their world
was blessed with an abundance of things that were lobsters (a good half a dozen
of which were now marching succulently up the beach towards them) they saw no
reason to waste any more time on the thing but decided to adjourn immediately
for a late lobster lunch.
At that exact moment the craft stopped suddenly in mid-air then upended itself
and plunged headlong into the ocean with a great crash of spray which sent them
shouting into the trees.
When they re-emerged, nervously, a few minutes later, all they were able to see
was a smoothly scarred circle of water and a few gulping bubbles. That's odd,
they said to each other between mouthfuls of the best lobster to be had anywhere
in the Western Galaxy, that's the second time that's happened in a year.
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The craft which wasn't a lobster dived direct to a depth of two hundred feet and
hung there in the heavy blueness, while vast masses of water swayed about it.
High above, where the water was magically clear, a brilliant formation of fish
flashed away. Below, where the light had difficulty reaching, the colour of the
water sank to a dark savage blue.
Here, at two hundred feet, the sun streamed feebly. A large, silk-skinned sea
mammal rolled idly by, as if it had half expected to find something of this kind
round about here, and then it slid on up and away towards the rippling light.