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

Then there was a distant sighing of wind -- air, superheated and
compressed, being forced outward. Next came the resurgence of human sounds, if
they were truly that any more.
Someone was yelling, "Oh, God ... Oh, God ... Oh, God..." There was a
crackle and smell of fire. Something blew up far off.
Then the earthquakes began. With a sharp snap, rock strata far
underground broke. Then came a jolt. Eddie Dukas and his mother, huddled on
the floor, were engulfed in a swaying sensation, smooth and vibrationless.
Then the ground quivered softly. After that, there was a pause, as of
something hanging precariously for a moment at the jagged lip of a chasm.
Suddenly the pathetic hold seemed to be broken, and the whole world was seized
by a tooth-cracking chatter. A pause . Then it began again.
For a second Eddie's mother almost lost her control. She tried to rise.
"The house!" she stammered. "It'll fall on us."
Panic and reason fought inside Eddie. "No, Mom," he gasped. "The house
has a steel frame. It'll probably hold together. Outside, we don't know what
would happen to us."
They both braced themselves for the next seismic burst. They were
creatures of luxury, science-made. But planning, training, psychology --
science it all was, too -- had given them ruggedness and courage, a reserve of
strength against hysteria while the earth rattled again and again.
Eddie's mom kept saying things, and it was all something like a formula
that had been learned, a rote, a parroted incantation: "You're right, Eddie.
We've got to think before we do anything. They always tell us that life is an
adventure. We've got to meet a bigger future or be destroyed, Eddie.
Everything takes nerve."
At last the earthquake shocks lessened both in intensity and frequency.
Maybe the worst was over.
Eddie risked an eye, and then nudged his mother.
Beyond the undamaged flexoglass of the windows night had returned,
red-lit from both sky and ground. The firmament was smeared with a ruddy glow
extending in a great curve, beaded with more intense blobs at several points.
Dust of the Moon, it had to be. Of its rock and pumice shell. And of its core
of meteoric iron. But that sullen effulgence was fading now, as matter cooled
and began simply to reflect solar light back to this dark side of Earth.
Yet everywhere outside there was fire. The towering glow in the east --
that would be the City, fifty miles away. Destruction and confusion there
would be unimaginable. Nearer at hand, trees were aflame -- leaves and
branches that minutes ago had been cool with greenness now blazed wildly.
Mixed with the tumult of voices was the clang of robot fire units.
Eddie rushed to the radio and turned it on, as he had been taught to do
in emergencies. You listened; you obeyed directions. "...lunar blowup,"
someone was saying. "Follow the usual precautions and measures for radioactive
contamination and flesh burns. Rescue and relief units are already in action.
Fortunately most of our buildings are not made of combustible materials..."
For minutes Eddie was furiously busy, rubbing special salves and
lotions into the skin of his entire body. Then, dressed in fresh clothes, he
and his mother just stared out of the windows for a while. Outside, metal
shapes were at work. Science and civilization were working efficiently to
recapture their balance after an upset that might have been the end.