"Alan Dean Foster - Some Notes Concerning A Green Box" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

This, to the great consternation of their respective department heads, who were
understandably depressed at the prospect of losing two such brilliant members of their
faculties, one old and venerable, the other a youngster of exceptional promise. But neither
man could be dissuaded, and following the setting in order of certain personal affairs, they
announced then-intention to return once again to the area of their former travels. It is also
known that they brought back a number of well-preserved and extremely eccentric
specimens of carved hieroglyphs and statuettes. These, Nolan maintained, had been found
not on Isla de Pas-cua (Easter), but on its smaller and little-visited neighbor to the west,
Sala-y-Gomez. It is also reported that they consulted with a number of supposed specialists
30
Some Notes Concerning a Green Box
in matters occult, among them a rather notorious and disreputable old bookseller in the
downtown section of San Diego. The man's shop is no longer there, the structure it was
located in having since been torn down and replaced by a multilevel parking lot, one section
of which I am able to report sags at the oddest angle, despite repeated attempts to correct
it.
Due to the obvious sincerity with which his department deplored his resignation, Professor
Nolan agreed to keep in touch with his old friends by means of occasional letters which he
would forward whenever the opportunity presented itself. These are the missives which I was
able to copy so hurriedly at the anthropology library. On some, the postmark was stamped
into the envelope with, sufficient force to leave an impression on the letter within, and by
judicious use of fingerprinting materials, I have been able to bring them to a legible state.
These dates vary from February 3 to May 18, 1967. All are postmarked from Valparaiso,
Chile, and one of them confides that the expedition was forced to remain there for such an
extended period of time so as to permit the repair of storm damage to their craft.
A letter to the man mentioned in that missive as the repairman, a Senor Juan Maria y Florez,
brought as a reply a note scrawled hi an awkward hand, as though the wielder of the pen
were unfamiliar with its use. Of the professors it had little to say, except that he, Florez, had
always thought of professors as being very composed individuals, and that these two
Americans seemed both nervous and jumpy. Instead he dwelt on the damage to their
schooner, which was totally alien to him, a man who had worked on ships for over forty
years. For example, he mentions that he did not feel Professor Turner's explanation of an
"unexpected heavy swell" entirely accounted for the odd twisting of the four-inch steel bar of
the schooner's left drive shaft, nor for how three of the four blades came to be broken off the
screw. A local shipman in Long Beach assures me that Mr. Florez, despite his forty years, is
here
31
WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE . ..
doubtless indulging a natural penchant for native exaggeration.
The first of these letters, dated February 11, includes in longhand the note "40 degrees, 9'
S, still on 110. Nothing visible on horiz. but Bob still conf."
This seemingly innocuous bit of information reveals on inspection a number of oddities. It
would seem to indicate that although the letters to home were mailed from February to the
middle of May, they were written not in Valparaiso, but while the professors were still at sea!
Why the two men should do this and then wait to mail the letters at staggered intervals
extending over three and a half months from the date of their arrival in Chile is beyond me.
And the latitude given is 40 degrees S. It is quite clear. The "110" can only be the longitude.
Thus, it must be inferred from this information that the ship was proceeding almost due
south from Easter Island. But the most peculiar part of the phrase is the section which states
"nothing visible on the horiz.," since this would seem to imply that perhaps the two men