"Rhys Hughes - The Singularity Spectres" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hughes Rhys)

My concern was shortly relieved by Kingdom Noisette, who flipped open a panel on the side of the stairway,
set into the rock. A recess revealed pipes, gauges and two levers. Bending close, he tapped a crystal dial
and chuckled.

"There's enough steam to carry us all up at maximum speed. Might be back by the end o' the week, laddies!"

Zimara was aghast. "I wish I'd thought of this!"

Noisette reversed the levers and the stairway ground to a halt with a hideous squeal. Then it started moving
upward at a steadily increasing rate. We positioned our luggage as securely as possible on the steps and
took our own places below. Now it was a question of murdering time until we emerged in Finsbury Park
station. As we ascended, hot vapours drifted up from beneath, broiling our brows. Conversation which might
have eased the tedium of the voyage was precluded by Zimara's stomach, which loudly reminded us of our
dearth of supplies. In the excitement of adventuring, we had neglected to seek out any sequoia-sized
mushrooms. No matter -- as our speed gradually became excessive, my appetite was dampened by a fear
which mirrored that of our drop.

I found the irony unbearable. "Won't we be smashed into the calcium carbonate deposits at the apex?" "No,
laddie, the sun's due to run out of coal any day now. We'll be lucky if it powers us another thousand miles."
He indicated the cloud of moisture which rose to swaddle us. "It's overheating, which means it has started to
consume itself. When the liquid in the boiler has evaporated, it'll blow itself asunder, taking the moon with it.
The core will linger in the sky as a dying star -- a brass dwarf. But don't worry: our inertia will lift us safely to
the top."

Although this explanation did little to soothe me, my troubles were modest contrasted with those of the
engineer, who had to fret not merely about whether the singularity would form before we attained the surface,
but also about his place in modern society. I assured him he didn't even need to shave to be accepted on
campus -- sideburns were back in fashion. Zimara expressed mirth at my assertion, but his own preference in
facial formats cancelled out his satire. Passing the crack in the wall which he claimed as his escape route
from prison, he tapped Noisette on the elbow and repeated his fantastic tale.

The engineer was unimpressed. "This planet is riddled with passages and stairways. When I worked as a
mining consultant in Wales, I explored one which looped down and up into Austria. Lined with marmalade jars
for its whole length. Very strange!"

Zimara went into a sulk and we continued in boiled dissatisfaction. I decided the hiatus would be best served
by catching up on sleep and we curled on our individual steps. I immediately lapsed into a sequel to my
dream which depicted Zimara's wraith reaching the core of the planet and landing on the unearthly sphere.
Acting like a trampoline, it sprang his startled soul back through geology and into his chest, where it replaced
the metal bars of its cage. Hiding the spectacle by buttoning his shirt, the hitcher climbed into my vehicle and
we roared away to new careers. I woke to see the real Zimara also dreaming, eyes spinning under lids like
pebbles in a lunatic dodo's gut.

So exhausted were we, from mental as well as physical travail, that we remained prone for almost five days.
We were roused into awareness by a shudder and a distant roar: blasts of grimy heat flooded over us. True to
Noisette's forecast, the inner sun had detonated. The escalator began to decelerate, but the process was
unhurried. One of my suitcases tipped over, spilling its spectral contents, which bounced back down the
steps, but we could afford to lose a few samples. I quickly steadied the others while the engineer and Zimara
blearily disputed the physics of velocity. Noisette maintained the eruption had occurred exactly when it suited
us, at our halfway point to the top.