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

these is an "X" at approximately 167 degrees east longitude, and 77 degrees south latitude.
Under these coordinates are the notes "Halley's, '86," which doubtless refers to the next
reappearance of the famous Halley comet, due back in our solar vicinity in 1986. A check of
a National Geographic map of this area reveals that the above coordinates intersect on or
very near Mt. Erebus, the 15,000-foot-high active volcano on McMurdo Sound in Anartica.
What this has to do with the next appearance of Halley's comet is no doubt known only to
Professors Turner and Nolan.
The second sketch is simply a crude map of the world with two lines drawn in on it. Although
laughable hi its simplicity, I was rather intrigued by this, as the two lines ran thusly: one went
in a straight line from that "X" (Mt. Erebus?) to Easter Island. The other line runs from Easter,
through the center "of its neighbor, Sala-y-Gomez, to a spot in the Andes of Northern Chile.
This, again coincidentally, happens to be the area Professor Fernandez was exploring when
he was killed by the earthquake. Straight as an arrow, it continues onward with three other
"X's" marked along its length. One is somewhere in the jungle of the Matto Grosso (memo:
write the Brazilian Land Survey), another in the Brazilian Basin, the deepest part of the
Atlantic Ocean, to end finally near Addis Ababa, in Ethiopia. i
The last item was neither note nor chart, but rather a sketch-drawing of what seemed to be
some enormous pyramidUke structure of ridiculous shape, with
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Some Notes Concerning a Green Box
accompanying notes in Turner's hand. This was the sole item I managed to smuggle from
the library intact. I regret that soon afterward I was offered a really ridiculous sum of money
for it, no questions asked, from a wealthy professor I was consulting, and so sold it to him.
He has since moved.
That completes what I have found to be an exceedingly odd collection of facts, and until
Professors Turner and Nolan return (from wherever they are) I am afraid much of this
material must remain as puzzling as ever. I hope you find it of some little interest. Besides, I
have come to think it wise to have the facts in the hands of an unadvertised party. Lately I
have had the feeling of being followed, especially at night. I was also forced to move from
my former apartment after experiencing a spell of severe nightmares unique in their
prismatic horror. The doctor at the University assured me that these are the natural results of
overwork at school. This may be, but the series of twelve grooves, six to a side, that I found
etched into the glass of my one window one morning after a particularly vivid phantasm of
terror have made me cautious. One thing I know, and that is that they were not the result of
overwork at school.
That is all I have to say about my work with the' green box and its odd contents. I am quite
happy in my new lodgings, and I am no longer troubled by nightmares. Also, I have been
selected to go on the University expedition to the South Seas! My associate and companion
will be a brilliant and eccentric cine-matographer named Pickman. Only one last thing
bothers me unreasonably. My new landlord has the most peculiarly colored yellow eyes.
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