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

"No more dogs?" Benning sat down slowly.
"They're very nasty when they start changing," Van Wall said precisely, "but slow. That electrocution iron you made up, Barclay, is very fast. There is only one dog
left -our immune. The monster left that for us, so we could play with our little test. The rest -" He shrugged and dried his hands.


"The cattle -" gulped Kinner.
"Also. Reacted very nicely. They look funny as hell when they start melting. The beast hasn't any quick escape, when it's tied in dog chains, or halters, and it
had to be to imitate."


Kinner stood up slowly. His eyes darted around the room, and came to rest horribly quivering on a tin bucket in the galley. Slowly, step by step, he retreated toward
the door, his mouth opening and closing silently, like a fish out of water.


"The milk -" he gasped. "I milked 'em an hour ago -" His voice broke into a scream as he dived through the door. He was out on the ice cap without windproof or heavy
clothing.


Van Wall looked after him for a moment thoughtfully. "He's probably hopelessly mad," he said at length, "but he might be a monster escaping. He hasn't skis. Take
a blow-torch in case."
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The physical motion of the chase helped them; something that needed doing. Three of the other men were quietly being sick. Norris was lying flat on his back, his
face greenish, looking steadily at the bottom of the bunk above him.


"Mac, how long have the -cows been not -cows -"
McReady shrugged his shoulders hopelessly. He went over to the milk bucket, and with his little tube of serum went to work on it. The milk clouded it, making
certainty difficult. Finally he dropped the test-tube in the stand and shook his head. "It tests negatively. Which means either they were cows then, or that, being
perfect imitations, they gave perfectly good milk."


Copper stirred restlessly in his sleep and gave a gurgling cross between a snore and laugh. Silent eyes fastened on him. "Would morphine affect a monster -"
somebody started to ask.


"Lord knows," McReady shrugged. "It affects every Earthly animal I know of."
Connant suddenly raised his head. "Mac! The dogs must have swallowed pieces of the monster, and the pieces destroyed them! The dogs were where the monster resided. I
was locked up. Doesn't that prove -"


Van Wall shook his head. "Sorry. Proves nothing about what you are, only proves what you didn't do."


"It doesn't do that," McReady sighed. "We are helpless. Because we don't know enough, and so jittery we don't think straight. Locked up! Ever watch a white
corpuscle of the blood go through the wall of a blood vessel? No? It sticks out a pseudopod. And there it is -on the far side of the wall."


"Oh," said Van Wall unhappily. "The cattle tried to melt down, didn't they? They could have melted down -become just a thread of stuff and leaked under a door to