"Murray Leinster - Planet of Sand" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

to the death. But it would take the Stallijer ten days or longer to reach Earth, then three or four days
for the microscopic examination of every part of the vast ship in grim search for him. Then there'd be
an inquiry. It might last a week or two weeks or longer. The finding would be given after deliberation
which might produce still another delay of a week or even a month. Rob Torren would not be free to
leave Earth before then. And then it would take him days to obtain a space yacht and— because a
yacht would be slower than the Stalttfer— two weeks or so to get back here. Three months in all
perhaps. Stan's food wouldn't last that long. Hjs water supply wouldn't last nearly as long at that. If he
could get up to the icecap there would be water, and on the edge of the ice he could plant some of the
painstakingly developed artificial plants whose seeds were part of every abandon ship kit. They could
live and produce food under almost any set of planetary conditions. But he couldn't reach the polar
cap without power the skid didn't have.
He straddled the little device. He pointed it upward. He rose sluggishly. The absurd little vehicle
wabbled crazily. Up, and up, and up toward the uncaring stars. The high thin columns of steel seemed
to keep pace with him. The roof of this preposterous shed loomed slowly nearer, but the power of the
skid was almost gone. He was ten feet below the crest when diminishing power no longer gave thrust
enough to rise. He would hover here for seconds, and then drift back down again to the sand, for
good.
He flung his kit of food. Upward. It sailed over the sharp edge of the roof and landed there. The skid
was
thrust down by the force of the throw, but it had less weight to lift. It bounced upward, soared above
the roof, and just as its thrust dwindled again, Stan landed it.
He found—nothing.
To be exact, he found the columns were joined by massive girders of steel fastening them in a
colossal open grid. Upon those girders which ran hi a line due north and south—reckoning the place
of sunset to be west—huge flat plates of metal were slung, having bearings which permitted them to
be rotated at the will of whatever unthinkable constructor had devised them. There were small bulges
which might contain motors for the turning. There was absolutely nothing but the framework and the
plates and the sand some three hundred feet below. There was no indication of the purpose of the
plates or the girders or the whole construction. There was no sign of any person or creature using or
operating the slabs. It appeared that the grid was simply a monotonous, featureless, insanely tedious
construction which it would have taxed the resources of Earth to build—it stretched far, far beyond
the horizon—but did nothing and had no purpose save to gather sand on its upper surfaces and from
lime to time dump that sand down to the ground. It did not make sense.
Stan had a more immediate problem than the purpose of the grid, though. He was three hundred feet
above ground. He was short of food and hopelessly short of water. When day come again, this place
would be the center of a hurricane of blown sand. On the ground, lashed to a metal column, he had
been badly buffeted about even in his spacesuit. Up here the wind would be much stronger. It was not
likely that any possible lashings would hold him against such a storm. He could probably get back to
the ground, of course, but there seemed no particular point to it.
As he debated, there came a thin, shrill whistling overhead. It came from the far south, and passed
overhead, descending, and—going down in pitch—it died away to the northward. The lowering of its
pitch indicated that it was slowing. The sound was remarkably like that of a small spacecraft entering
atmosphere incompletely under
control, which was unthinkable, of course, on the solitary unnamed planet of Khor Alpha. Stan felt
very, very lonely on a huge plate of iron thirty stories above the ground, on an alien planet under
unfriendly stars, and with this crytpic engineering monstrosity breaking away to sheer desert on one
side and entending uncounted miles in all others. He flicked on his suit radio, without hope.
There came the loud, hissing static. Then under and through it came the humming carrier wave of a
low power transmitter sending on emergency power.
"Help call! Help call! Space yacht Erebus grounded on planet of Khor Alpha, main drive burned out,