"Campbell, John W Jr - Who Goes There" - читать интересную книгу автора (Campbell John W Jr)

The dogs had fallen back when Barclay reached the corridor bend, fallen back before a furious monstosity that glared from baleful red eyes, mewing in trapped
hatred. The dogs were a semi-circle of red-dipped muzzles with a fringe of glistening white teeth, whining with a vicious eagerness that near matched the
fury of the red eyes. McReady stood confidently alert at the corridor bend, the gustily muttering torch held loose and ready for action in his hands. He stepped
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aside without moving his eyes from the beast as Barclay came up. There was a slight, tight smile on his lean, bronzed face.
Norris' voice called down the corridor, and Barclay stepped forward. The cable was taped to the long handle of a snow-shovel, the two conductors split, and held 18
inches apart by a scrap of lumber lashed at right angles across the far end of the handle. Bare copper conductors, charged with 220 volts, glinted in the light of
pressure lamps. The Thing mewed and halted and dodged. McReady advanced to Barclay's side. The dogs beyond sensed the plan with the almost-telepathic
intelligence of trained huskies. Their whimpering grew shriller, softer, their mincing steps carried them nearer. Abruptly a huge, night-black Alaskan leapt onto
the trapped thing. It turned squalling, saber-clawed feet slashing.


Barclay leapt forward and jabbed. A weird, shrill scream rose and choked out. The smell of burnt flesh in the corridor intensified; greasy smoke curled up. The
echoing pound of the gas-electric dynamo down the corridor became a slogging thud.


The red eyes clouded over in a stiffening, jerking travesty of a face. Armlike, leglike members quivered and jerked. The dogs leapt forward, and Barclay yanked
back his weapon. The thing on the snow did not move as gleaming teeth ripped it open.
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Chapter 6
Garry looked about the crowded room. Thirty-two men, some tensed nervously standing against the wall, some uneasily relaxed, some sitting, most preferred
standing, as intimate as sardines. Thirty-two, plus the five engaged in sewing up wounded dogs, made thirty-seven, the total personnel.


Garry started speaking. "All right, I guess we're here. Some of you -three or four at most -saw what happened. All of you have seen that thing on the table, and can
get a general idea. If anyone hasn't, I'll lift -". His hand strayed to the tarpauling bulking over the thing on the table. There was an acrid odor of singed
flesh seeping out of it. The men stirred restlessly, hasty denials.


"It looks rather as though Charnauk isn't going to lead any more teams," Garry went on. "Blair wants to get at this thing, and make some more detailed
examinations. We want to know what happened, and make sure right now that this is permanently, totally dead. Right?"


Connant grinned. "Anybody that doesn't agree can sit up with it tonight."
"All right then, Blair, what can you say about it? What was it?" Garry turned to the little biologist.


"I wonder if we ever saw its natural form." Blair looked at the covered mass. "It may have been imitating the beings that built that ship -but I don't think it
was. I think that was its true form. Those of us who were up near the bend saw the thing in action; the thing on the table is the result. When it got loose,
apparently, it started looking around. Antarctica still frozen as it was ages ago when the creature first saw it -and froze. From my observations while it was
thawing out, and the bits of tissue I cut and hardened then, I think it was native to a hotter planet than Earth. It couldn't, in its natural form, stand the
temperature. There is no life-form on earth that can live in Antactica during the winter, but the best compromise is the dog. It found the dogs, and somehow got
near enough to Charnauk to get him. The others smelled it -heard it -I don't know -anyway they went wild, and broke chains, and attacked it before it was
finished. The thing we found was part Charnauk, queerly only half-dead, part Charnauk half-digested by the jellylike protoplasm of that creature, and part the
remains of the thing we originally found, sort of melted down to the basic protoplasm.