"Chad Oliver - The Winds of Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Oliver Chad)

"Nlesine has been wrong before," Kolraq said patiently.
"You bet he has, you just bet he has. Why, I remember the time—back before we left old Lortas and
set sail into the old sunrise—Nlesine was sounding off about … "
Kolraq shut his ears with an effort; the voice at his side became a drone, an irritant, nothing more.
Lord, Lord, are we no better than the rest? Must we bicker and pick at each other, even here,
even now, in the Shadow?
Far below the ship the brown world that was the fourth planet of Alpha Centauri spun through space,
orbited around her flaming primary.
 In the control room of the Good Hope, Derryoc looked up from the computer tapes and shook his
head. "Take her down," he said to the Captain.
Already the ship had eased down out of the endless night of space through a high, thin blue. She had
settled through a rolling sea of white clouds, flashed into sunshine and winds and horizons.
Now she went down to where snow-tipped mountains almost ripped her belly. She roared and
thundered, this gleaming titan; she ripped through winds and rains, and the air rushed in behind her with a
thunder of its own.
She blasted over continents, across tossing seas. She threw her snake shadow over lonely islands and
sent birds rising fearfully from forest trees. She flashed across yellow desert sands and left new dunes in
her wake.
Derryoc stayed at his viewerscope, not moving save to make rapid notes on a pad.
After six hours he stood up wearily. "It is the same," he said to Wyik.
The Captain stood steadily. There was no change of expression on his face. His muscles tensed a little
more, and that was all. "Would you care to suggest a likely spot for the field investigation?"
The anthropologist consulted his pad. He nodded, gave Hafij the coordinates of the best site he had
seen.
There was despair in the control room now, an old despair, unvoiced and unheeded. The same, the
same. It was always the same.
The ship thundered back to the position Derryoc had given. She stood on her tail and rode a boiling
column of flame out of the sky, down to the desert sands that waited for her with an ageless patience.
She landed, settled, stopped.
There was silence.
The air was tested, found unbreathable. Since the copter was such a nuisance to assemble, they
decided to walk to the site—it was very close anyway. Derryoc, Tsriga, Nlesine, Lajor, and Arvon put
on face masks. The others stayed with the ship.
The great airlock port sealed behind them. The outer door hissed open. Derryoc went out first, and
down the ladder. Arvon was right behind him.
Arvon shivered, although it was not cold. His boots sunk into the yellow sand, and he stood a
moment, listening. The sounds he heard were strange after the mechanical hums of the ship.
The sounds of wind, sighing across the desert, wind that had known ocean seas, and would know
them again. The sounds of sand, rustling, sliding, shifting.
The sound was the sound of rain, but the sky above them was a cloudless blue, the visible sun warm
and peaceful. Their shadows moved before them, sharply etched on the rippled sand.
Yes, and the sounds were the sounds of death, the dry whispers that spoke of life that had once been,
and was no more.
Death, thought Arvon. Hello, old friend …
"Come on," called Derryoc, crunching across the desert floor. "Come on, we don't want to get caught
out by nightfall."
Arvon fell into line, and single file they made their way across the sand, feeling it trickle into their
boots, drift inside their shirts.
A bath will feel good tonight, Arvon thought, and smiled at the utter irrelevance of the notion.
Behind them the ship towered in a land of desolation.