[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

that he no longer saw anything clearly. And it was thus he emerged from the
inner circle; the inner circle of the city, the inner circle of Dante's hell.
His tears ceased to flow and his vision cleared. Ahead of him was
the proud outline of the Federal Building, shining and intact or almost so.
As he neared the imposing steps and gazed up at the facade, he noted that
there were a few hints of crumbling and corrosion on the surface of the
structure. The freakish blast had done outright damage only to the sculptured
figures surmounting the great arched doorway; the sym-bolic statuary had been
partially shattered so that the frontal surface had fallen away. He
blinked at the empty outlines of the three figures; somehow he never
had realized that Faith, Hope and Charity were hollow.
Then he walked inside the building. There were tired soldiers
guarding the doorway, but they made no move to stop him, probably
because he wore a protective garment even more intricate and impressive
than their own.
Inside the structure a small army of low clerks and high brass moved antlike
in the corridors; marching grim-faced up and down the stairs. There were no
elevators, of course theyd ceased functioning when the electricity gave out.
But he could climb.
'
He wanted to climb now, for that was why he had come here. He wanted to gaze
out over the city. In his gray insulation he resembled an
automaton, and like an automaton he plodded stiffly up the stairways until
he reached the topmost floor.
But there were no windows here, only walled-in offices. He walked down a long
corridor until he came to the very end. Here, a single large cubicle glowed
with gray light from the glass wall beyond.
A man sat at a desk, jiggling the receiver of a field telephone and cursing
softly.
He glanced curiously at the intruder, noted the insulating uniform, and
returned to his abuse of the instrument in his hand.
So it was possible to walk over to the big window and look down.
It was possible to see the city, or the crater where the city had been.
Night was mingling with the haze on the horizon, but there was no darkness.
The little incendiary blazes had been spreading, apparently, as the wind
moved in, and now he gazed down upon a growing sea of flame. The crumbling
spires and gutted structures were drowning in red waves. As he watched, the
tears came again, but he knew there would not be enough tears to put the fires
out.
So he turned back to the man at the desk, noting for the first time that he
wore one of the very special uniforms reserved for generals.
This must be the commander, then. Yes, he was certain of it now, because
the
floor around the desk was littered with scraps of paper. Maybe they were
obsolete maps, maybe they were obsolete treaties. It didn't matter now.
There was another map on the wall behind the desk, and this one mattered very
much. It was studded with black and red pins, and it took but a moment to
decipher their meaning. The red pins signified destruction, for there was
one affixed to the name of this city. And there was one for New York, one
Page 76
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
for Chicago, Detroit, Los
Angeles every important center had been pierced.
He looked at the general, and finally the words came.
"It must be awful," he said.
"
Yes, awful, the general echoed.
"
"
Millions upon millions dead.
"
"
Dead."
"The cities destroyed, the air polluted, and no escape. No escape anywhere in
the world."
"No escape."
He turned away and stared out the window once more, stared down at Inferno.
Thinking, this is what it has come to, this is the way the world ends.
He glanced at the general again, and then sighed. "To think of our being
beaten,"
he whispered.
The red glare mounted, and in its light he saw the general's face,
gleeful and exultant.
"What do you mean, man?" the general said proudly, the flames
rising. "We won!"
ARTHUR C. CLARKE
Writer, lecturer, skin diver, travel expert, and interpreter of science for
the lay audience, Arthur Clarke is not quite all things to all men but he is
giving it a good try. He helped British pilots outwit the
Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain. He was one of the founders of the
British rocket society. He has had no fewer than six sightings of
UFOs (all of which he explains in non-saucerian terms). And, in
general, he has shown a remarkable capacity for being where the excitement is,
and coming back to tell the rest of us about it. He is also a science fiction
writer at the very rarefied level of general excellence shared by
only a few. You already know this, of course; but if you didn't you would
soon learn in reading
The Deep Range
There was a killer loose on the range. A 'copter patrol, five
hundred miles off
Greenland, had seen the great corpse staining the sea crimson as it wallowed
in the waves. Within seconds, the intricate warning system had been
alerted : men were plotting circles and moving count-ers on the North
Atlantic chart and Don Burley was still rubbing the sleep from his eyes
as he dropped silently down to the twenty-fathom line.
The pattern of green lights on the tell-tale was a glowing symbol of security.
As long as that pattern was un-changed, as long as none of those emerald stars
winked
to red, all was well with Don and his tiny craft.
Air fuel power this was the triumvirate which ruled his life. If any of them
failed, he would be sinking in a steel coffin down toward the pelagic ooze, as
Johnnie Tyndall had done the season before last. But there was no reason why
they should fail; the accidents one foresaw, Don told himself reassuringly,
were never the ones that hap-pened.
He leaned across the tiny control board and spoke into the mike. Sub 5 was
still close enough to the mother ship for radio to work, but before
long he'd have to switch to the sonics.
"Setting course 255, speed 50 knots, depth 20 fathoms, full sonar coverage. .
. .
Page 77
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Estimated time to target area, 70 minutes.... Will report at 10-minute
intervals. That is all.... Out."
The acknowledgement, already weakening with range, came back at once from the
Herman Melville.
"Message received and understood. Good hunting. What about the hounds?"
Don chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. This might be a job he'd have to handle
alone. He had no idea, to within fifty miles either way, where Benj and Susan
were at the moment. They'd certainly follow if he signaled for them,
but they couldn't maintain his speed and would soon have to drop
behind. Besides, he might be heading for a pack of killers, and the
last thing he wanted to do was to lead his carefully trained
porpoises into trouble. That was common sense and good business. He
was also very fond of Susan and Benj.
"It's too far, and I dont know what I'm running into, he replied. "If they're
in the
'
"
interception area when I get there, I may whistle them up.
"
The acknowledgement from the mother ship was barely audible, and Don
switched off the set. It was time to look around.
He dimmed the cabin lights so that he could see the scanner screen more
clearly, pulled the polaroid glasses down over his eyes, and peered into the
depths. This was the moment when Don felt like a god, able to hold within his
hands a circle of the
Atlantic twenty miles across, and to sec clearly down to the still-unexplored
deeps, three thousand fathoms below. The slowly rotating beam of
inaudible sound was searching the world in which he floated, seeking
out friend and foe in the eternal dark-ness where light could never
penetrate. The pattern of soundless shrieks, too shrill even for the hearing
of tile bats who had invented sonar a million years before man, pulsed out
into the watery night: the faint echoes came tingling back as floating,
blue-green flecks on the screen. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

zanotowane.pl

doc.pisz.pl

pdf.pisz.pl

glaz.keep.pl