being hasty settled on the earth.
«Nasty – Fild answered. – The bullet has to strike everything on the way and many troubles will do. I did not calculate force of my gun. Now the bullet will rush around Earth as the small satellite until friction force about air gradually reduces its speeds; then it falls to the Ground».
«But really it punched everything that was on its way: trees, at home, rocks?»
«Obviously» – Fild answered, fainting from blood loss.
Fild was right. The bullet really did many troubles. It pierced thousands of people on the way, killing one to death, crippling others. And only frightened others: smashed a cup in hands of some old woman who was peacefully sitting at a fireplace or punched a hat, as at me.
In the woods the bullet killed a set of animals, and its way was noted by corpses which lay as the beads passed by an invisible thread. The globe was as if divided into two half by an invisible barrier through which it was impossible neither to pass, nor to pass.
It was necessary to put a fencing on all way of flight of a bullet. For iron and highways carried out in the place of their crossing by «a deadly ring» tunnels or built bridges. But it was especially bad at the sea. Red protective buoys specified the forbidden place. The ocean steamship message happened to change of passengers who were transported under the dangerous place on submarines… In a word, the bullet gave awfully much a lot of trouble. At scientists the heads swelled, engineers went as mads, inventing means against a bullet. What only they did not think out! Obstacles from concrete, steel boards, and the bullet as if did not notice these obstacles and had no intention to slow down flight. Eventually it was decided how doctors speak, «to be osumkovat»: concluded in metal tubes all its trajectory – all way of its county. Then someone suggested to fill a tube with water or oil to increase resistance. Poured. But from friction liquid evaporated, and pipes burst, and a bullet – though that! From it alloy it was cast.
– What did all this come to an end in? – Dick became interested.
– Only one Fild could help a trouble, and he helped as soon as became independent after wound. «Like cures like – he told. – It is necessary to send a counter bullet».
– Well?
– Well also sent. The bullet crashed into a bullet, and the bullet passed through a bullet, having shattered into the smallest parts. These parts flying in opposite directions would be dangerous too. But, fortunately, from blow both bullets changed flight, and splinters were carried away in heavenly space towards Big Dipper.
– Also wounded her in a paw? – seriously Mike asked. – But you, apparently, began to tell about hunting for the «African» tiger, and terminated hunting for Big Dipper. What did your hunting for a tiger terminate in?
– The gun misfired, I rushed on a tiger and tore to pieces it to pieces – Nick angrily answered.
DEAD HEAD
I. IN THE PURSUIT OF GLORY
– Collecting exactly at noon on this glade.
Joseph Morel nodded to two satellites, corrected a road bag behind the back and, wagging with a net for catching of insects, went deep into a thicket.
It were possession of palm trees, ferns and lianas.
Morello carelessly sang a cheerful song, sharp-sightedly peering through glasses of points at greenish twilight of the rainforest. The young scientist was in the best mood. He was lucky in life. Morel was not forty more years old, and he already had professor’s rank. Its work about spiders received an award, and now it received a scientific business trip to Brazil, in the low-studied riverheads of Amazon, this paradise for entomologists.
«The science knows two hundred thousand species of insects. Charlz Read assumes that their not less than ten million. Every year not less than six and a half thousand new types are described. It will be not bad if six thousand more opened by Joseph Morel increase this year. What magnificent monument from insects will be erected to himself by Morel!» – professor was carried away in ambitious dreams. And his dreams were quite feasible. In this wood there would be enough material not for one «monument». Motley pieces of future greatness of Morel in the form of beautiful multi-colored butterflies rushed before it as snow flakes. It was only necessary to aggregate these flakes sparkling all colors of the rainbow – and scientific immortality of Morel is provided. His sharp-sighted eye of the scientist already noticed several unusual forms of butterflies, but Morel did not hurry. Among this inexhaustible wealth he was able to afford luxury to be legible. Besides he was interested in spiders more, and here they met a little.
The more went deep the Morello into a thicket, the shadows became more dense, the wood is more silent. Huge trunks of palm trees as columns, left highly up, closing light of the sun the weaved leaves. Vegetable parasites – orchids and bromeliya stuck to shaggy trunks of palm trees. And below young palm trees and ferns scattered the fanlike leaves, forming a dense underbrush. And from a palm tree to a palm tree, from a trunk to a trunk were stretched as snakes, uzlasty lianas – these wire entanglements of rainforests. In places the bright yellow beam of the sun cut through the greenish twilight of the wood, and in gold of beams the red wing of a parrot flashed, diamond sparkled flown by a humming-bird, the flame lit an orchid flower.
– O-and! O-and! Ha-ha-ha! – sharply the parrot shouted. It was answered by a big monkey. Hanging on a tail, she rhythmic was shaken, trying to reach a hand a parrot. But a parrot, having estimated distance a sloping eye, sat not movably and continued grumbling «about – and» as the neighbor who started a quarrel with boredom. Two little monkeys noticed the person and some time followed it, dexterously getting over on hands on lianas. One monkey grasped another by a tail. That began to squeal, grinned, and here they began to fight, having forgotten about Morel.
The wood lived life.
Morel’s legs softly went on the earth covered with a moss and the rotted-through leaves. It became more difficult to go. Damp, hothouse air was filled with aromas of flowers and plants so strongly that the Morello choked. As though over this wood there passed heavy rain from stupefyingly spicy spirits. The net was confused in branches. A morello fell, having hooked for lianas or the tumbled-down trunks which acquired a moss. The scientist passed no more than three kilometers, and already felt fatigue and all was covered with a perspiration. He decided to come to the open place. Having looked round, the Morello noticed from himself to the right a light spot as though there the dawn was engaged, and went to this gleam. It came to the forest glade going along the dried-up course of one of uncountable small inflows of Amazon soon. In the period of rains on this course the real river which was carrying away a windbreak in the prompt current stormed. But now the bottom was dry and covered with sharp marsh herbs. Only at the edges and here and there on a bottom the rotted-through trunks of trees which remained from a high water were scattered.
Morello went down in a dry bed of the river and inhaled in himself drier and rarefied air. The same minute its attention was attracted with the huge butterfly who had wingspan more than a meter. A morello even bent down, ready to a jump. In it the scientific and passionate insects hunter started talking.
«Absolutely new kind of acherontia medor (the dead head)» – thought the Morello, monitoring flight of a butterfly.
The back of a butterfly was not brown with a caesious reflection,
