"Arcady And Boris Strugatsky. Prisoners of Power" - читать интересную книгу автора

to pieces, or rescuing a field laboratory from a gigantic, stupid
pseudo-octopus, nothing could drag him away from the mentoscope. He would
squeal softly, clap his head in delight, and yell at his exhausted
assistant, who was making recordings of the images. The sight of a
chromospheric protuberance would send the professor into raptures, as if he
had never seen anything like it before. And he was very fond of love scenes,
extracted by Maxim from movies for the specific purpose of giving the
natives some idea of Earthlings' emotional life.
The professor's absurd reaction to this material depressed Maxim. He
wondered if Hippo was really a professor and not simply a mentoscope
engineer preparing material for the real commission set up for communication
with visitors from outer space. Hippo seemed a rather primitive individual,
like a kid interested only in the battle scenes in War and PeaceWar and
Peace. It was humiliating, Maxim felt, to have such a serious matter as his
presentations of Earth taken so lightly. He was entitled to expect a more
serious partner in his attempt to communicate.
Of course, it was possible that this world was located at an
intersection of interstellar routes, so that visitors from outer space were
commonplace - in fact, so commonplace that special commissions were not
established for each new arrival. Officials simply limited themselves to
eliciting the most essential information from them. In his case, for
example, the people with shiny but-tons, obviously not experts, had examined
his situation and, without further ado, sent him, a new arrival, to the
designated place. But, he thought, perhaps some nonhumanoids had made such a
bad impression that the natives reacted to all recent arrivals from other
planets with a decided but justifiable suspicion. Therefore, all Professor
Hippo's fussing with the mentoscope was merely a delaying action, only a
semblance of communication, until some higher authority decided his fate.
"One way or another," concluded Maxim, gagging on the last piece of
food, "I'm in a mess. If I'm going to get anywhere, I had better hurry up
and learn their language."
"Good," said Fishface, removing his plate. "Let's go."
Maxim sighed and rose. They entered the corridor. It was long, dirty
blue, and lined with doors, like the one to Maxim's room. Maxim never
encountered anyone here, but occasionally he heard excited voices coming
from behind closed doors. Possibly other strangers were being kept here to
await decisions on their fate.
Fishface walked in front of him with a long masculine stride, straight
as a stick, and Maxim felt very sorry for her. Apparently this country was
still uninitiated in the cosmetic arts, and poor Fishface had been left to
her own devices. The professor's assistant treated her with contempt, and
Hippo took no notice of her at all. Reminding himself of his own inattentive
attitude, his con-science began to bother him. He caught up with her, patted
her bony shoulder, and said: "Nolu, fine girl. Good girl."
She lifted a cold face to him, pushed away his hand, frowned, and
declared sternly: "Maxim bad. Man. Woman. Must not."
Embarrassed, Maxim dropped back again.

When they reached the end of the corridor, Fishface pushed open a door
and they entered a large light room that Maxim thought of as a reception