"Emil Petaja - Dinosaur Goes Hollywood" - читать интересную книгу автора (Petaja Emil)

roof with all kinds of scientific junk, including what looked like an old-time radio set, mounted on
wheels..
" 'What gives with all this junk, Doc?' I asks.
" 'I am going to try an experiment in Time,' he told me solemnly. 'Scientists have frequently dreamed
of traveling backward or forward in Time. Personally, my research convinces me that it can be done. But
the risks involved are so great that one would be foolhardy to attempt it.
" 'I have another plan—a much less dangerous plan. Simpler, and yet it presents an infinite variety of
fascinating possibilities . . .
" 'What I propose to do,' Doc says, his face kind of shining, 'is to employ what I call a Time-Net to
snare—from out of the past—something that will be of value to science. Preferably a living creature.'
" 'Such as?' I asks.
" `Mmrnm,' Doc answered. I didn't get it. But if Doc wanted to snare around for something out of
back-time it was okay with me.
"I turned the station wagon off Wilshire Boulevard, and eased gently down a bump that led us into
the La Brea Park. Where the big stone lizards are.
" `Ah, here we are, Jock,' Doc says, rubbing his hands together anxiously. `Park over by those
bushes. Then help me unload and prepare the Time-Net.'

"IT WAS a lulu of a gold-spangled morning. And it was bright and early. Traffic on Wilshire wasn't
heavy yet.
"I carted out all that heavy apparatus, and set it out just the way Doc directed me to. He picked a
nice clear spot on the other side of a low footbridge, near one of those scummy dank-looking tar holes.
"I lugged for a while, and got pretty fagged.
"Say, Doc,' I says. 'Why don't we pick some place what's easier to get to. Where there ain't no
marshes. I know a swell stretch down by the beach—'
"You don't understand, Jock,' he says, waggling his head. 'I don't imagine that you even know what
La Brea is famous for?'
"He eyed me hopefully, while he fiddled with gadgets on the machine that looked something like a
radio.
"I blushed, and looked away. Over at one of those stone lizards.
" 'I'll take a moment to explain,' Doc said kindly. 'La Brea Pits is famous as being the site of a
remarkable discovery of dinosaur fossils from the Mesozoic Age. You really ought to avail yourself of the
collection of fossils at the Exposition Museum, which were taken from La Brea.
" 'You see, Jock—a long, long time ago there were great pits of tar right here. And many of these
great lumbering lizard creatures became mired in this tar. They died in the tar, and it preserved their
bones remarkably well through the ages, in fossil form.
" 'Paleozoologists have been able to reconstruct these fossils into replicas of these Mesozoic
dinosaurs. We know just about exactly what they looked like . . .
" 'What is most important to us, Jock, is that we know positively that dinosaurs were evident at this
exact spot, in the Mesozoic Age. That's why I chose this place for my first experiment . . ."
"You have a remarkable memory, Mr. Wendt," I observed, astonished at his use of words.
"That's nothing," Wendt said sheepishly, wiping a moustache of beer foam off his upper lip. "After
what happened later I made it a point to find out about them."
"Now," I said, sliding toward the door. "If you don't mind I'll just—"
"Siddown!" Wendt growled. His vexed look vanished right away, and he went on— "Doc Greylock
told me exactly how to rig up his Time-Net, while for the next half hour he kept tinkering with the knobs
and wheels on his gadget.
"Finally he announced that he was all ready to start, and told me to get outside the circle which his
Time-Net enclosed.
"Then he lugged out a special metal box from the station wagon—he wouldn't let me lay a finger on