"Olaf Stapledon - Starmaker" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stapledon Olaf)

barren incandescence was a dream, that I was dozing by the fire, that at any moment I might wake, that she would
reach over from her sewing and touch me and smile. But the stars still held me prisoner.
Again, though with failing strength, I set about my search. And after I had wandered from star to star for a period
that might have been days or years or aeons, luck or some guard-ian spirit directed me to a certain sun-like star; and
looking outwards from this center, I caught sight of a little point of light, moving, with my movement, against the
patterned sky. As I leapt toward it, I saw another, and another. Here was indeed a planetary system much like my own.
So obsessed was I with human standards that I sought out at once the most earth-like of these worlds. And amazinsly
earth-like it ap-peared, as its disc swelled before me, or below me. Its atmos-phere was evidently less dense than ours,
for the outlines of unfamiliar continents and oceans were very plainly visible.
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As on the earth, the dark sea brilliantly reflected the sun's image. White cloud-tracts lay here and there over the
seas and the lands, which, as on my own planet, were mottled green and brown. But even from this height I saw that
the greens were more vivid and far more blue than terrestrial vegetation. I noted, also, that on this planet there was less
ocean than land, and that the centers of the great continents were chiefly occupied by dazzling creamy-white deserts.

CHAPTER Ø

THE OTHER EARTH

1. ON THE OTHER EARTH

AS I slowly descended toward the surface of the little planet, I found myself searching for a land which promised to
be like England. But no sooner did I realize what I was doing than I reminded myself that conditions here would be
en-tirely different from terrestrial conditions, and that it was very unlikely that I should find intelligent beings at all. If
such beings existed, they would probably be quite incompre-hensible to me. Perhaps they would be huge spiders or
creep-ing jellies. How could I hope ever to make contact with such monsters?
After circling about at random for some time over the filmy clouds and the forests, over the dappled plains and
prairies and the dazzling stretches of desert, I selected a maritime country in the temperate zone, a brilliantly green
peninsula. When I had descended almost to the ground, I was amazed at the verdure of the country-side. Here
unmis-takably was vegetation, similar to ours in essential character, but quite unfamiliar in detail. The fat, or even
bulbous, leaves reminded me of our desert-flora, but here the stems were lean and wiry. Perhaps the most striking
character of this vegeta-tion was its color, which was a vivid blue-green, like the color of vineyards that have been
treated with copper salts. I was to discover later that the plants of this world had in-deed learnt to protect themselves
by means of copper sul-phate from the microbes and the insect-like pests which formerly devastated this rather dry
planet.
I skimmed over a brilliant prairie scattered with Prussian-27
blue bushes. The sky also attained a depth of blue quite un-known on earth, save at great altitudes. There were a
few low yet cirrus clouds, whose feathery character I took to be due to the tenuousness of the atmosphere. This was
borne out by the fact that, though my descent had taken place in the forenoon of a summer's day, several stars
managed to pierce the almost nocturnal sky. All exposed surfaces were very intensely illuminated. The shadows of the
nearer bushes were nearly black. Some distant objects, rather like buildings, but probably mere rocks, appeared to be
blocked out in ebony and snow. Altogether the landscape was one of unearthly and fantastical beauty.
I glided with wingless flight over the surface of the planet, through glades, across tracts of fractured rock, along the
banks of streams. Presently I came to a wide region covered by neat, parallel rows of fern-like plants, bearing masses of
nuts on the lower surfaces of their leaves. It was almost im-possible to believe that this vegetable regimentation had
not been intelligently planned. Or could it after all be merely a natural phenomenon not known on my own planet?
Such was my surprise that my power of locomotion, always sub-ject to emotional interference, now began to fail me. I
reeled in the air like a drunk man. Pulling myself together, I stag-gered on over the ranked crops toward a rather large
object which lay some distance from me beside a strip of bare ground. Presently, to my amazement, my stupefaction,
this object revealed itself as a plow. It was rather a queer instru-ment, but there was no mistaking the shape of the