"William Tenn - The Liberation of Earth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tenn William)

activity upon one of the moons of Saturn. The Troxxt were evidently threading their treacherous way
inward through the solar system. Considering their vicious and deceitful propensities, the Dendi warned,
an attack from these worm-like monstrosities might be expected at any moment.
Few humans went to sleep as the night rolled up to and past the meridian on which they dwelt.
Almost all eyes were lifted to a sky carefully denuded of clouds by watch-ful Dendi. There was a brisk
trade in cheap telescopes and bits of smoked glass in some sections of the planet, while other portions
experienced a substantial boom in spells and charms of the all-inclusive, or omnibus, variety.

The Troxxt attacked in three cylindrical black ships simultaneously: one in the Southern Hemisphere,
and two in the Northern. Great gouts of green flame roared out of their tiny craft, and everything touched
by this imploded into a translucent, glass-like sand. No Dendi was hurt by these, however, and from each
of the now-writhing gun mounts there bubbled forth a series of scarlet clouds which pursued the Troxxt
hungrily, until forced by a dwindling velocity to fall back upon Earth.
Here they had an unhappy after-effect. Any populated area into which these pale pink cloudlets
chanced to fall was rapidly transformed into a cemetery—a cemetery, if the truth be told as it has been
handed down to us, that had more the odor of the kitchen than the grave. The inhabitants of these
unfortunate localities were subjected to enormous increases of temperature. Their skin reddened, then
blackened; their hair and nails shriveled; their very flesh turned into liquid and boiled off their bones.
Altogether a disagreeable way for one-tenth of the human race to die.
The only consolation was the capture of a black cylinder by one of the red clouds. When, as a result
of this, it had turned white-hot and poured its substance down in the form of a metallic rainstorm, the two
ships assaulting the Northern Hemisphere abruptly retreated to the asteroids into which the
Dendi—because of severely lim-ited numbers—steadfastly refused to pursue them.
In the next twenty-four hours, the aliens—resident aliens, let us say—held con-ferences, made
repairs to their weapons, and commiserated with us. Humanity bur-ied its dead. This last was a custom
of our forefathers that was most worthy of note, and one that has not, of course, survived into modern
times.
By the time the Troxxt returned, Man was ready for them. He could not, unfortu-nately, stand to
arms as he most ardently desired to do, but he could and did stand to optical instrument and conjurer's
oration.
Once more the little red clouds burst joyfully into the upper reaches of the strato-sphere; once more
the green flames wailed and tore at the chattering spires of lendi; once more men died by the thousands in
the boiling backwash of war. But this time, there was a slight difference: the green flames of the Troxxt
abruptly changed color after the engagement had lasted three hours; they became darker, more bluish.
And, as they did so, Dendi after Dendi collapsed at his station and died in convulsions.
The call for retreat was evidently sounded. The survivors fought their way to the tremendous ship in
which they had come. With an explosion from her stern jets that blasted a red-hot furrow southward
through France, and kicked Marseilles into the Mediterranean, the ship roared into space and fled home
ignominiously.
Humanity steeled itself for the coming ordeal of horror under the Troxxt.


They were truly worm-like in form. As soon as the two night-black cylinders had landed, they strode
from their ships, their tiny segmented bodies held off the ground by a complex harness supported by long
and slender metal crutches. They erected a dome-like fort around each ship—one in Australia and one in
the Ukraine—cap-tured the few courageous individuals who had ventured close to their landing sites, and
disappeared back into the dark craft with their squirming prizes.
While some men drilled about nervously in the ancient military patterns, others pored anxiously over
scientific texts and records pertaining to the visit of the Dendi—in the desperate hope of finding a way of
preserving terrestrial independence against this ravening conqueror of the star-spattered galaxy.