"Edmond Hamilton - Moon of the Unforgotten" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Edmond)

emotional. “What's all this nonsense about
shouted a glad young cry that was answer
Ezra ? If anyone but you had sent that
to that call.
message …”
“Its true, Curt. He’s gone. I think—I
* * * * *
think he won't ever come back.”
Newton shook her. “Come on, Joan !
A message went to Earth's Moon,
Ezra ? Why, he’s been up and down the
flashing across the millions of empty
System since before you and I were born,
miles. It went by a secret wave-frequency
first in the old space- frontier days of the
that only a half-dozen people knew.



2
Patrol and now with your Section Three. vaguely heard him. His gaze had followed
He wouldn't get himself into any jam.” Joan's out into the alien night.
“He has,” said Joan Randall flatly. “And This was not his first visit to Europa.
if you'll stop being comforting I have all And he was surprised to find that Joan had
the data ready to show you—what there is put into words exactly what he had always
of it.” felt about the silent moon, the old old
moon that was scarred so deep by time.
SHE led the way toward the low buildings Here, on one side, were the modern
glare and thunder of the spaceport, busy
of Patrol headquarters. The four followed with freighters and one or two sleek liners.
her, the tall red-haired man whom the Beyond the spaceport was Europolis, a
System called Captain Future and his three glow of light behind a barren ridge. But on
companions, his lifelong friends, the three the other side, before him and behind him,
who were closer to him even than this girl was a sadness of ancient rock and distant
and the missing Ezra Gurney—Grag, the hills, of brooding forest hung with shadow,
metal giant, Otho, the lithe keen-eyed of great plains empty in the red glow of
android, and Simon Wright, who had once Jupiter, dusty wastes where no herds had
been a human scientist but who for half a grazed and no armies fought for a hundred
lifetime now had been divorced from thousand years.
human form. The woods and plains were scattered
It was the latter who spoke to Joan. His with the time-gnawed bones of cities, dead
voice was metallic and expressionless, and forsaken even before the last
issuing from the artificial resonator set in descendants of their builders had sunk into
one side of his “body”. That “body” was a final barbarism. A thin old wind wandered
hovering square metal case that contained aimlessly among the ruins, whimpering as
all that was human of Simon Wright—his though it remembered other days and wept.
brilliant deathless brain. Newton could not suppress a slight
“You say,” said Simon, “that Ezra is shiver. The death of any great culture is a
gone. Where precisely did he go ?” mournful thing and the culture that had
Joan glanced at Simon, who was built the shining cities of Europa was the