Книга All Flesh is Grass — читать онлайн бесплатно полностью

Настал день, когда человечество встретилось (а быть может, вернее сказать  — столкнулось) с иным разумом.

All the speculation, of course, had concerned an alien out of space, an alien on, or from, some other world in space. But here was the alien, not out of space, but time or at least from behind a barrier in time.

It made no difference, I told myseIf. Out of either space or time, the involvement was the same. Man at this moment finally faced his greatest test, and one he could not fail.

Правда, мы всегда рассуждали либо о пришельцах из космоса, либо о встрече с чужим разумом с какой-нибудь далекой планеты.

А не все ли равно? Из пространства ли, из времени ли  — осложнения те же. Вот он пришел  — час, когда человеку предстоит величайший в истории экзамен, и провалиться нельзя.

I gathered up the pottery and went back up the trail again.

Tupper was still sleeping, but no longer snoring.

The sun had moved far down the west, but the heat still held and there was no hint of breeze. The purple of the flowers lay unstirring on the hillsides.

Я собрал посуду и стал подниматься по тропинке. Таппер еще спал, но больше не храпел. Он по-прежнему лежал на спине, пальцы ног все так же торчали в небо.

Солнце клонилось к закату, но жара не спадала, в воздухе  — ни ветерка. И лиловые цветы на склонах холмов недвижны.

I stood and looked at them and they were innocent and pretty and they held no promise and no threat. They were just a field of flowers, like a field of daisies or of daffodils. They were the sort of thing that we had taken for granted all our years on earth. They had no personality and they stood for nothing except a splotch of colour that was pleasing to the eye.

Я стоял и смотрел на них  — цветы как цветы, милые, невинные, словно бы ничего не обещают и ничем не грозят.

That was the hard thing about all this, I thought—the utter impossibility of thinking of the Flowers as anything but flowers. It was impossible to think of them as beings, as anything that had even a symbol of importance.