"Robert F. Young - When Time Was New" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

that resembled Chinese, but only as the mist resembles the rain. It had no more in common with modern
American than its speakers had with their surroundings. Clearly they hadn't understood a word he had
said. But, equally as clearly, they must have found reassurance in his plain and honest face, or perhaps in
the gentle tone of his voice. After talking the matter over for a few moments, they left their aerie and
shinned down the trunk, the boy going first and helping the girl over the rough spots. He was about nine;
she was about eleven.
Carpenter stepped out of the compartment, vaulted down from Sam's steel snout and went over to
where they were standing. By this time, the stego had recovered the use of its hind legs and was
high-tailing—or rather, high-backing—it over the plain. The boy was wearing a loose, apricot-colored
blouse which was considerably stained and disheveled from his recent arboreal activities, a pair of
apricot-colored slacks which were similarly stained and disheveled and which terminated at his thin
calves and a pair of open-toe sandals. The girl's outfit was identical, save that it was azure in hue and
somewhat less stained and disheveled. She was about an inch taller than the boy, but no less thin. Both of
them had delicate features, and hair the color of buttercups, and both of them wore expressions so
solemn as to be almost ludicrous. It was virtually a sure bet that they were brother and sister.

Gazing earnestly up into Carpenter's gray eyes, the girl gave voice a series of sing-song phrases,
each of them, judging from the nuances of pronunciation, representative of a different language.
When she finished, Carpenter shook his head. "I just don't dig you, pumpkin," he said. Then, just to
make sure, he repeated the remark in Anglo-Saxon, Aeolic Greek, lower Cro-magnonese,
upper-Acheulian, middle English, Iroquoian and Hyannis-Portese smatterings of which tongues and
dialects he had picked up during his various sojourns in the past. No dice. Every word he spoke was just
plain Greek to the girl and the boy.
Suddenly the girl's eyes sparkled with excitement, and, plunging her hand into a plastic reticule that
hung from the belt that supported her slacks, she withdrew what appeared to be three pairs of earrings.
She handed one pair to Carpenter, one to the boy, and kept one for herself; then she and the boy
proceeded to affix the objects to their ear lobes, motioning to Carpenter to do the same. Complying, he
discovered that the tiny disks which he had taken for pendants were in reality tiny diaphragms of some
kind. Once the minute clamps were tightened into place, they fitted just within the ear openings. The girl
regarded his handiwork critically for a moment, then, standing on tiptoe, reached up and adjusted each
disk with deft fingers. Satisfied, she stepped back. "Now," she said, in perfect idiomatic English, “we can
get through to each other and find out what's what."



Carpenter stared at her. "Well I must say, you caught on to my language awful fast!"
"Oh, we didn't learn it," the boy said. "Those are micro-translators—hearrings. With them on,
whatever we say sounds to you the way you would say it, and whatever you say sounds to us the way
we would say it."
"I forgot I had them with me," said the girl. "They're standard travelers' equipment, but, not being a
traveler in the strict sense of the word, I wouldn't have happened to have them. Only I'd just got back
from foreign-activities class when the kidnapers grabbed me. Now," she went on, again gazing earnestly
up into Carpenter's eyes, "I think it will be best if we take care of the amenities first, don't you? My name
is Marcy, this is my brother Skip, and we are from Greater Mars. What is your name, and where are
you from, kind sir?"

It wasn't easy, but Carpenter managed to keep his voice matter-of-fact. It was no more than fair that
he should have. If anything, what he had to say was even more incredible than what he had just heard.
"I'm Howard Carpenter, and I'm from Earth, 2156 A. D. That's 79,062,156 years from now." He
pointed to the triceratank. "Sam over there is my time machine —among other things. When powered