Clifford Simak - No Life of Their Own And Other Stories

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Clifford Simak - No Life of Their Own And Other Stories» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию без сокращений). В некоторых случаях можно слушать аудио, скачать через торрент в формате fb2 и присутствует краткое содержание. Год выпуска: 2016, Издательство: Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Жанр: Фантастика и фэнтези, на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале библиотеки ЛибКат.

No Life of Their Own And Other Stories: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «No Life of Their Own And Other Stories»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

A mind-opening collection of short science fiction from one of the genre's most revered Grand Masters. Twelve tales of the unknown from the Nebula Award–winning author of 
. Clifford D. Simak had a sublime ability to evoke a lost way of life. He spent his youth in rural Wisconsin, a landscape filled with mysterious hollows, cliffs, dark forests, and the Wisconsin River flowing in its deep-cut valley. As Simak wandered the countryside and the ridges, he peopled them with imaginary characters who later came to life in his stories. One such individual is Johnny, the orphaned farm boy of “The Contraption,” who stumbles upon a wrecked starship and receives a priceless gift from its owners. Another is the old prospector Eli, whose surprising discoveries on Mercury get him killed in “Spaceship in a Flask.” In “Huddling Place,” a man with paralyzing agoraphobia is the only one who can save the life of a dear friend on Mars—if he can bear to make the trip. And in the title story, aliens slowly take over Earth while humans leave it behind and head for the Homestead Planets.
Each story includes an introduction by David W. Wixon, literary executor of the Clifford D. Simak estate and editor of this ebook.

No Life of Their Own And Other Stories — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «No Life of Their Own And Other Stories», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Back at the time-tractor camp Yancey told the story of the battle between the caveman and the cat, of how he watched and had finally stepped in to save the man’s life.

But the others had stories, too. Cabot and Cameron, hunting together a few miles to the east, had been charged by an angry mammoth bull, had stopped him only after they had placed four well aimed heavy-caliber bullets into him. Pascal, remaining at the tractor, had scared off a cave bear and reported that a pack of five vicious, slinking wolves had patrolled the camp throughout the afternoon. He had shot two of them and then the rest had scattered.

For here was a land that was teeming with game; a land where the law of claw and fang ruled and was the only law; where big animals preyed on smaller animals and in turn were preyed upon by still bigger ones. Here was a land without human habitation, with the few Neanderthalers who did live here hiding in dark, dank caves. Here was a land that had no human tenets, no softening hand of civilization.

But here, in this primeval wilderness of what later was to become the British Isles, was the greatest hunting ground Cabot and Yancey had ever seen. They shot in self-defense as often as they shot to bring down marked game. They found that a cave bear would carry more lead than an elephant, that the saber-tooth was not so hard to kill as might be thought, that only superb marksmanship and the heaviest bullets would bring the mammoth to his knees.

The flickering campfire, lighting up the gray, shadowy bulk of the time-tractor, was the only evidence of civilized life upon the darkening world as a blood-red moon climbed over the eastern horizon and lighted a land that growled and snarled, shivered and whimpered, hunted and was hunted.

Yancey saw Old One-Eye lurking on the edge of the camp when he arose in the morning. He had just a glimpse of the old fellow, squatting in a clump of bushes, looking over the camp with his one good eye. He disappeared so quickly, so soundlessly that Yancey blinked and rubbed his eyes, hardly believing he had left.

In the field that day Yancey and Cabot caught sight of him several times, lurking in their wake, spying upon them.

“Maybe,” Cabot suggested, “he is trying to get up enough courage to thank you for saving his life.”

Yancey grunted.

“Hell, I had to do that, Jack,” he said. “He isn’t more than an animal, but he’s still a man. We got to play along with our own kind in a place like this. He was such a brave old cuss. Standing there, ready to go to bat with that cat with his bare hands.”

Back at the camp, Pascal looked at it in a scientific light.

“Just natural curiosity,” he said. “The first glimmering of intelligence. Trying to figure things out. With what limited brain power he has that old fellow is doing some heavy thinking right now.”

“Maybe he recognizes you as one of his descendants. Great-grandson to the hundredth generation, maybe,” Cameron jibed at Yancey.

“The Neanderthal race is not the ancestor of man,” Pascal protested. “They died out or were killed off by the Cro-Magnons, who’ll be moving in within another ten or twenty thousand years. The Neanderthaloids were just a sort of blind alley. An experiment that didn’t go quite right.”

“Seems damn human, though,” protested Yancey.

One-Eye became a camp fixture. He lurked around the tractor, trailed Yancey when he went afield. Degree by degree he became bolder. Meat was left where he could find it and he carried it off into the brush. Later he didn’t bother to drag it off. In plain view of the hunters he squatted on his haunches, ripping and rending it, snarling softly, gulping great, bloody mouthfuls of raw flesh.

He haunted the campfire like a dog, apparently pleased with the easy living he had found. He came farther away from the encircling brush, squatted and jabbered just outside the circle of firelight, waiting for the bits of food tossed to him.

At last, seemingly convinced he had nothing to fear from these strange creatures, he joined the campfire circle, sat with the men, blinking at the campfire, jabbering away excitedly.

“Maybe he has a language,” said Pascal, “but if he has it’s very primitive. Not more than a dozen words at most.”

He liked to have his back scratched, grunting like a contented hog. He begged for cubes of sugar.

“Makes a nice pet,” Cameron declared.

But Yancey shook his head.

“Something more than a pet, Hugh,” he said.

For between Yancey and the old Neanderthaler something akin to comradeship had developed. It was by Yancey that the old one-eyed savage sat when he came into the ring of firelight. It was at Yancey that he directed his chatter. During the day he haunted Yancey’s footsteps like a shadow, at times coming out openly to join him, ambling along with his awkward gait.

One night Yancey gave him a knife, half wondering if One-Eye would know what it was. But One-Eye recognized in this wondrous piece of polished metal something akin to the fist ax that he and his people used to flay the pelts from the animals they killed.

Turning the knife over and over, One-Eye slobbered in delirious glee. He jabbered excitedly at Yancey, clawed at the man’s shoulder with caressing paw. Then he leaped from his place by the campfire and slithered away into the darkness. Not so much as a breaking twig heralded his plunge into the night.

Yancey rubbed his eyes.

“I wonder what the damn old fool is up to now?” he asked.

“Went off to try his new knife,” suggested Cabot. “Something like that calls for a little throat-slitting.”

Yancey listened to the moaning of a saber-tooth in the brush only a short distance away, heard the bellow of a mammoth down by the river.

He shook his head dolefully.

“I sure hope he watches his step,” he said. “He’s slowing up. Getting old. That saber-tooth out there might get him.”

But in fifteen minutes One-Eye was back again. He waddled into the circle of firelight so silently that the men did not hear his approach.

Looking over his shoulder, Yancey saw him standing back of him. One-Eye was holding out a clenched fist, but within the fist was something that glinted in the flare of the campfire.

Pascal caught his breath.

“He’s brought you something,” he told Yancey. “Something in exchange for the knife. I would never have believed it. The barter principle.”

Yancey rose and held out his hand. One-Eye dropped the shiny thing into it. Living flame lanced from it, striking Yancey’s eyeballs.

It was a stone. Yancey rotated it slowly with his fingers and saw that within its center dwelt a heart of icy blue flame, while from its many facets swarmed arcing colors of breath-taking beauty.

Cabot was at his elbow, staring.

“What is it, Yancey?” he gasped.

Yancey almost sobbed.

“It’s a diamond,” he said. “A diamond as big as my fist!”

“But it’s cut,” protested Cabot. “That’s not a stone out of the rough. A master jeweler cut that stone!”

Yancey nodded.

“Just what would a cut diamond be doing in the old Stone Age?” he asked.

CHAPTER IV

The Broadcast in Time

One-Eye pointed down into the throat of a cave and jabbered violently at Yancey. The hunter patted the hoary shoulders and One-Eye danced with glee.

“This must be it,” Yancey said.

“I hope so,” said Cameron. “It’s taken plenty of time to make him understand what we wanted. I still can’t understand how we did it.”

Cabot wagged his head.

“I can’t understand any of it,” he confessed. “A Neanderthaler lugging around cut diamonds. Diamonds as big as a man’s fist.”

“Well, let’s go down and see for ourselves,” suggested Yancey.

Читать дальше
Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «No Life of Their Own And Other Stories»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «No Life of Their Own And Other Stories» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё непрочитанные произведения.


Отзывы о книге «No Life of Their Own And Other Stories»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «No Life of Their Own And Other Stories» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.

x