"William Morrison - Vermin" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morrison William)

VERMIN
By WILLIAM MORRISON

The giants hated humans, and the humans hated—
A GIANT shadow swooped down upon them without warning and involuntarily the two visitors
cringed. Sarkin noted however, that Norick, with nerves strengthened by long experience, simply drew
aside to the shelter of a cliff and said in a low voice that was definitely not a whisper, "Wait here. He
hasn't noticed us."
Sure enough the shadow passed—and a second later Norick led them forward again. Above them,
almost as far as the eye could see, stretched a smooth blank wall. Behind them, across a wide plain, rose
a similar wall. Norick pulled aside a curtain that hid an entrance in the nearer wall and they followed him
inside. "You've never seen a play?" he asked in a tone of surprise.
Sarkin and his wife, Leta, shook their heads. "We've heard vague rumors that such things exist," said
Sarkin.
"They exist, all right," said Norick. "In fact, I try to write them myself in my spare time. The ones they
act, though, are usually pretty old. There are a couple by a prehistoric called Shakespeare and one each
by some of his contemporaries—Euripides, Wilde, Ibsen and Shaw.
"They're hard to understand, naturally, as they refer to a time that was almost forgotten long before
the Great Migration. All the same the words have a soothing rhythm. Come in and listen."
Both Sarkin and Leta watched in wondering silence the strange scene that met their eyes. Upon a
raised platform, visible to the entire audience, two men and a woman were declaiming their inmost
thoughts and behaving as if they thought no one were looking at them.
"It's what is known as a stage convention," explained Norick at the end of what he designated as an
act. "They pretend that the audience just doesn't exist."
"But they know that the audience is there," objected Leta. "It has come there for the single purpose
of seeing them. They would speak the lines of the play to each other if there were no audience."
"I know it's absurd," agreed Norick. "But you get used to the absurdity after a time and then you
have difficulty realizing that the act of watching a play is anything but the most natural experience in the
world. Don't pay too much attention to your own uneasiness. Just listen and watch and enjoy what you
can understand."
They tried to follow his advice but the strangeness of the proceedings was not to be got rid of so
easily. And then, in the middle of the third act, the whole theater shook and both audience and actors
froze in their places.
They could see how the sweat poured down the face of one of the actors, who was supposed to
represent a calm and imperturbable character, but every one was sharing his emotions and no one
blamed him. After a few seconds the theater settled back in place and the play went on as if nothing had
happened.

LATER, when he was taking them home, Norick admitted, "I thought they were on to us that time."
"What would have happened if they had suspected we were there?" asked Leta.
"They'd have knocked the theater down and tried to smash us as we ran for safety. I had a very dear
friend"—his voice faltered for a second. "I went to college with him. He was killed at a concert. And my
brother was squashed to death just a year ago, caught outside his own door by one who probably never
even knew he had stepped on him."
"It isn't as bad as that where we live," said Sarkin. "There aren't so many of them and at least we
usually have more warning when they're coming. We've set up a rather elaborate alarm system."
 "What good does it do you to know when they're on their way? If they want to take the trouble to
get you they can."
"Not always. We have some good hideouts. And we're devising ways of striking back. As a
scientist," said Sarkin modestly, "I think that they're more vulnerable than most people imagine."