"Harry Harrison - Planet Of The Damned (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

about that time, and in the galaxy-wide disruption Anvhar had to fight its own
internal battle. When the Earth Empire collapsed it was the end of more than
an era. Many of the observation stations found themselves representing
institutions that no longer existed. The professional hunters no longer had
markets for their furs, since Anvhar possessed no interstellar ships of its
own. There had been no real physical hardship involved in the Breakdown as it
affected Anvhar, since the planet was completely self-sufficient. Once they
had made the mental adjustment to the fact that they were now a sovereign
world, not a collection of casual visitors with various loyalties, life
continued unchanged. Not easy--living on Anvhar is never easy--but at least
without difference on the surface.

The thoughts and attitudes of the people were, however, going through a great
transformation. Many attempts were made to develop some form of stable society
and social relationship. Again, little record exists of these early trials,
other than the fact of their culmination in the Twenties.

To understand the Twenties, you have to understand the unusual orbit that
Anvhar tracks around its sun, 70 Ophiuchi. There are other planets in this
system, all of them more or less conforming to the plane of the ecliptic.
Anvhar is obviously a rogue, perhaps a captured planet of another sun. For the
greatest part of its 780-day year it arcs far out from its primary, in a
high-angled sweeping cometary orbit. When it returns there is a brief, hot
summer of approximately eighty days before the long winter sets in once more.
This severe difference in seasonal change has caused profound adaptations in
the native fife forms. During the winter most of the animals hibernate, the
vegetable Me lying dormant as spores or seeds. Some of the warm-blooded
herbivores stay

active in the snow-covered tropics, preyed upon by fur-insulated carnivores.
Though unbelievably cold, the winter is a season of peace in comparison to the
summer.

For summer is a time of mad growth. Plants burst into life with a strength
that cracks rocks, growing fast enough for the motion to be seen. The
snowfields melt into mud and within days a jungle stretches high into the air.
Everything grows, swells, proliferates. Plants climb on top of plants,
fighting for the life-energy of the sun. Everything is eat and be eaten, grow
and thrive in that short season. Because when the first snow of winter falls
again, ninety per cent of the year must pass until the next coming of warmth.

Mankind has had to adapt to the Anvharian cycle in order to stay alive. Food
must be gathered and stored, enough to last out the long winter. Generation
after generation had adapted until they look on the mad seasonal imbalance as
something quite ordinary. The first thaw of the almost nonexistent spring
triggers a wide-reaching metabolic change in the humans. Layers of
subcutaneous fat vanish and half-dormant sweat glands come to life. Other
changes are more subtle than the temperature adjustment, but equally
important. The sleep center of the brain is depressed. Short naps or a night's
rest every third or fourth day becomes enough. Life takes on a hectic and