"C M Kornbluth - Friend To Man" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

It had been worth his minute pains; he had got two hundred feet of film while she staggered and reeled
loathsomely. And she had, after



the Optol evaporated, described with amazed delight how different everything had looked, and how
exquisitely she had danced . . .



"S-z-aw-t!" announced the native from the mouth of the burrow. It bowled at him marbles of rock salt
from the surface, where rain never fell to dissolve them.



He licked one, then cautiously sipped water. He looked at the native, thought, and put his knife away. It
came into the burrow and reclined at the opposite end from Smith.



It knows what a knife is, and water and salt, and something about language, he thought between sips.
What's the racket?
But when? But when?



Wait longer, little ones. Wait longer.



"You understand me?" Smith asked abruptly. The amber drop exuded, and the native played whiningly:
"A-ah-nn-nah-t-ann."



"Well," said Smith, "thanks."



He never really knew where the water came from, but guessed that it had been distilled in some fashion
within the body of the native. He had, certainly, seen the thing shovel indiscriminate loads of crystals into
its mouth—calcium carbonate, aluminum hydroxide, anything— and later emit amorphous powders from
one vent and water from another. His food, brought on half an STC can, was utterly unrecognizable—a
jelly, with bits of crystal embedded in it that he had to spit out.



What it did for a living was never clear. It would lie for hours in torpor, disappear on mysterious errands,