"Philip Jose Farmer - Time' s Last Gift" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

Gribardsun had paled only slightly when they had rolled. He spoke with a British accent
with a very slight underlying suspicion of another. Von Billmann, the linguist, had never been
able to identify it. He had refused to question the Englishman about it because he wanted to label
it himself. He prided himself on his ability to recognize any of the major languages and at least
two hundred of the minor. But he had no idea of what tongue underlay the Englishman's speech.

The screen showed the view behind the vehicle. A tiny figure stepped out from the shadow
of a huge overhang of rock. It ran to a large rock and dropped behind it.

Rachel said, 'That was a man, wasn't it?'

'Has to be,' Gribardsun said.

He kept the camera upon the rock, and, after several minutes, a head appeared. He closed
up, and they were looking at a seeming distance of ten feet into the face of a man. His hair and
beard were light brown, tangled, and long. The face was broad and a prominent supraorbital ridge


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shaded eyes of some light color. The nose was large and aquiline.

'I'm so thrilled,' Rachel said. 'Our first man! The first human being. A Magdalenian!'

The man stood up. He was about six feet tall. He wore a fur vest, fur knee-length pants,
and calf-length fur boots. He carried a short flint-tipped spear and an atlatl, a stick with a
notch at one end, which enabled him to cast the spear with greater force. A skin belt held a skin
bag which looked as if it held a small animal or large bird. The belt also supported a skin sheath
from which protruded a wooden hilt.

Gribardsun looked at a dial. 'Outside temperature is fifty degrees Fahrenheit,' he said.
'And it's fifteen minutes past noon, late May - perhaps. Warmer than I had expected.'

'There's very little green as yet,' Drummond Silverstein said.

Nobody spoke for a moment. They were just beginning to feel the awe that they had expected
to feel. The transition and the rolling had numbed them, and the anesthesia of wonder and fright
was just beginning to dissolve.

Gribardsun checked that the equipment was operating at one hundred per cent efficiency. He
ran through the CAA (checkout-after-arrival), calling out each item to von Billmann, who sat on
his left. The German repeated each, and the words of both were taped. At the end of the checkout,
a green light flashed on the panel.

Gribardsun said, 'The air outside is pure. It's air that we haven't known for a hundred
and fifty years.'

'Let's breathe it,' Drummond Silverstein said.