"Raymond Z. Gallun - Dawn of the Demigods Or, People Minus X" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gallun Raymond Z)

was now below the danger level.
Overhead, arching the sky like the Rings of Saturn turned ragged, was
what was left of Luna: rock and dust. For an hour its texture veiled the sun,
until, near noon, there was almost twilight, like that of an eclipse. That
"arch" was a permanent monument to a night that would be remembered.
There still were hysterical people around. Eddie saw Mrs. Payten, his
friend's mother. She passed in the street, muttering, "Oh, Ronald, you were a
beast of a man, but I loved you. Why were you a fool, too? ... No record ...
None..."
It had been a subject of neighborhood gossip that Ronald Payten, a




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large, passive lug, had been a very much henpecked husband. His neglect of
having a record made of himself might have seemed strange for so noted a
biologist. Maybe it was absentmindedness, professional difference of opinion,
or even some backhanded defiance of his wife.
There were moments when the wild taint in young blood and the
magnificence of disaster gave Eddie and others almost an outing mood. But
toil, sweat and horror soon turned things grim as he worked with the men. His
hands were blackened and scratched. But maybe tiredness was balm for delayed
shock. Maybe it was thus that he stood at the brief funeral services -- for
his father, too -- with less hurt. The great trench was closed over the
corpses, and the thing was done.
Later, back in the house, he struggled with himself somewhat, and said,
"I know it wasn't your fault, Uncle Mitch."
Eddie had seen stern faces that day, topping trim gray uniforms:
regional police. In him was the thought: Harboring a fugitive. One who
shouldn't be called that. But who is -- now. Because people have taken a
beating like never before. Even laws can be changed. Ideas of justice won't
stay quite the same.
"Have you outgrown my calling you Nipper?" Mitchell Prell asked him
seriously. "Perhaps ... But I still want to show you something."
Young Ed Dukas was no sucker for easy come-ons. But his polite wariness
soon dissolved, when, in the room where Mitchell Prell was holed up, he saw
that the man who turned to face him was not his uncle. The nose and lips were
much heavier. Only the eyes and grin remained much the same, though their
general effect was made different by the difference of surrounding features.
This man looked like a good-natured mechanic.
Eddie's spine chilled. But he gave a sullen snort as the man peeled his
face away. Underneath it was Uncle Mitch.
"A mask, Eddie. A trick for kids, you'd say." His uncle laughed. "I
spent the day making it up, to help me get around more easily. That's nothing.
The important fact is that it is made of vitaplasm. Remember the bar of it
that I once bad? Crude stuff then. Better now. Alive in a way of its own. A
synthetic and far tougher cousin to natural protoplasm. Far less susceptible
to damage by heat and cold. Self-healing, like flesh. Sustained by food and
oxygen. But capable of drawing its energy from sunlight or radioactivity, too.