"microbe" - читать интересную книгу автора (Slonczewski Joan)

If there were intelligent life forms, they had yet to invent radio. A year of
monitoring the planet at every conceivable frequency had yielded nothing, not so
much as a calculation of pi.
Skyhook landed gently in a field of dense vegetation. The wall of the cabin
opened, the door pulling out into an arch of nanoplast. A shaft of brilliant
light entered.
"All systems check," crackled Quantum's voice on the radio in her ear. "Go
ahead."
Andra gathered her field equipment and set Skyhook's eye upon her shoulder
again. Then she stepped outside.
The field was a riot of golden ringlets, like wedding bands strewn out. Her gaze
followed the cascade of gold down to the edge of the field, where taller dark
trunks arose in shallow curves, arching overhead. From the taller growth came a
keening sound, perhaps some living thing singing, or perhaps the wind vibrating
somehow through its foliage. "It's beautiful," she exclaimed at last.
Beneath the golden ringlets grew dense blue-brown vegetation, reaching to
Andra's waist. She bent closer for a look. "These look like plants, `phycoids.'
The ringlets might be flowers."
"They could just as well be snakes ready to snap," warned Skyhook. "Watch your
step."
She looked back at the shuttlecraft, planted in the field like a four-legged
insect. Then she lifted her leg through the foliage, Pelt's nanoplastic "skin"
flexing easily. Immediately her foot snagged. She tried to pull out some of the
growth, but found it surprisingly tough and had to cut it with a knife. "The
leaves and stems are all looped," she observed in surprise. "All looped, just
like the `flowers;' I'll never get through this stuff."
Pelt said, "They are phycoid. I detect products of photosynthesis."
"They could be carnivorous plants," Skyhook insisted.
Andra collected some more cuttings into her backpack. "I wish I could smell
them," she said wistfully. Pelt's skin filtered out all volatile organics. She
aimed her laser pen to dig one out by the roots. The phycoid came up, but nearby
stems sparked and smoldered.
"Watch out!" squeaked the eyespeaker.
She winced. "Don't deafen me; I'll put it out." She stamped the spot with her
boots and sprinkled some water from her drinking jet. "This planet's a fire
trap." The phycoid roots, she noted, were long twisted loops, tightly pressed
together, but loops nonetheless. All the living structures seemed to be bagels
squashed and stretched.
"Great Spirit, we've got company," Skyhook exclaimed.
Andra looked up. She blinked her eyes. A herd of brown-striped truck tires were
rolling slowly across the field. To get a closer look, she pressed through the
phycoids, stopping every so often to extricate her feet from the looped foliage.
She made about ten meters progress before stopping to catch her breath.
"No need to get too close," Skyhook reminded her. His eye had telephoto.
"Yes, but I might pick up droppings, or some fallen hair or scales."
Some of the rolling "tires" were heading toward her. Each one had several round
cranberry-colored spots set in its "tread." The "tread" was composed of suckers
that stretched and extended to push in back, or pull in front. "They must be
animal-like, `zoцids,'" suggested Andra. "Those red things--could they be eyes?"
She counted them, two, three, four in all, before the first came up again. Those