"09 - Synthetic Men of Mars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burroughs Edgar Rice)

"How long will it take to grow a new body for Tor-dur-bar?" John Carter asked.
"Nine days; but it may be a body he can't use, and then it will have to be done
over again. I have accomplished much, but I still cannot control the development
of these bodies or any part of them. Ordinarily his head will grow a body. It
might be a body so malformed as to be useless, or it might be just a part of a
body or even another head. Some day I shall be able to control this. Some day I
shall be able to create perfect humans."
"If there is an Almighty God he may resent this usurpation of his prerogatives,"
remarked The Warlord with a smile.
"The origin of life is an obscure mystery," said Ras Thavas, "and there is quite
as much evidence to indicate that it was the result of accident as there is to
suggest that it was planned by a supreme being. I understand that the scientists
of your Earth believe that all life on that planet was evolved from a very low
form of animal life called amoeba, a microscopic nucleated mass of protoplasm
without even a rudimentary form of consciousness or mental life. An omnipotent
creator could just as well have produced the highest conceivable form of life in
the first place – a perfect creature – whereas no existing life on either planet
is perfect or even approximates perfection.
"Now, on Mars, we hold to a very different theory of creation and evolution. We
believe that as the planet cooled chemicals combined to form a spore which was
the basis of vegetable life from which, after countless ages, the Tree of Life
grew and flourished, perhaps in the center of the Valley Dor twenty-three
million years ago, as some believe, perhaps elsewhere. For countless ages the
fruit of this tree underwent the gradual changes of evolution, passing by
degrees from true plant life to a combination of plant and animal. In the first
stages, the fruit of the tree possessed only the power of independent muscular
action, while the stem remained attached to the parent plant; later, a brain
developed in the fruit, so that hanging there by their long stems they thought
and moved as individuals. Then, with the development of perception came a
comparison of them; judgments were reached and compared, and thus reason and the
power to reason were born upon Barsoom.
"Ages passed. Many forms of life came and went upon the Tree of Life, but still
all were attached to the parent plant by stems of varying lengths. At length,
the fruit upon the tree consisted of tiny plant men, such as may now be found
reproduced in huge size in the Valley Dor, but still hanging to the limbs and
branches of The Tree by the stems which grew from the tops of their heads.
"The buds from which the plant men blossomed resembled large nuts about a foot
in diameter, divided by double partition walls into four sections. In one
section grew the plant man, in another a six legged worm, in the third the
progenitor of the white ape, and in the fourth the primeval human of Barsoom.
When the bud burst, the plant man remained dangling at the end of his stem; but
the three other sections fell to the ground, where the efforts of their
imprisoned occupants to escape sent them hopping about in all directions.
"Thus, as time went on, these imprisoned creatures were scattered far and wide
over the surface of the planet. For ages they lived their long lives within
their hard shells, hopping and skipping hither and thither, falling into the
rivers, lakes, and seas which then existed upon the surface of Barsoom, to be
still further spread across the face of the new world. Countless billions died
before the first human broke through his prison walls into the light of day.
Prompted by curiosity, he broke open other shells; and the peopling of Barsoom