99 Classic Science-Fiction Short Stories. Айзек Азимов

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СКАЧАТЬ sharp flash way off like an explosion. I understand that folks in Superior claim to have felt a jolt as if something big had smashed up out there in the trackless dust and dunes between Mud Lake, Morrow Creek, and the town. That's quite a lot of empty territory and Ed and I had about as much chance of finding the meteor as a needle in the haystack. But it was a swell excuse.

      "Cold Front coming down from Saskatchewan," the Chief said as he came in and looked over our charts. We were getting ready to leave. "Unusual for this time of year."

      I nodded, unworried. We had the mountains between us and any cold wave from that direction. We wouldn't freeze at night even if the cold got down as far as Casper, which would be highly unlikely. The Chief was bending low over the map tracing out the various lows and highs. He frowned a bit when he came to a new little low I had traced in from the first reports of that day.

      "An unreported low turning up just off Washington State. That's really odd. Since when are storms originating so close?"

      "Coming east too and growing according to Seattle's wire," said Ed. The Chief sat down and stared at the map.

      "I don't like it, it's all out of whack," he said. Then he stood up and held out his hand to me.

      "Well, goodbye, boys and have a good time. If you find that meteor, bring me back a chunk too."

      "Sure will," I said and we shook hands and yelled at the other boys and went out.

      The first rays of the sun were just coming up as we left. Outwards we jogged easily, the town and civilization fell behind rapidly and we went on into the golden glow of the Sweetwater basin.

      We made good time that day though we didn't hurry. We kept up a nice steady trot, resting now and then. We didn't talk much for we were too busy just breathing in the clean open air and enjoying the sensation of freedom. An occasional desert toad or the flash of a disturbed snake were the only signs of life we saw and the multiform shapes of the cactus and sage our only garden. It was enough.

      Towards evening at the bureau, the Chief first noted the slight growth of the Southern Warm Front. A report from Utah set him buzzing. The Cold Front had now reached the borders of Wyoming and was still moving on. The baby storm that was born where it had no right to be born was still growing and now occupied a large area over Oregon and Idaho. The Chief was heard to remark that the conjunction of things seemed to place south west Wyoming as a possible center of lots of wild weather. He started worrying a bit about the two of us.

      We didn't worry. We didn't have any real indications but our weather men's senses acted aright. We felt a sort of odd expectancy in the air as we camped. Nothing definite, a sort of extra stillness in the air as if forces were pressing from all sides, forces that were still far away and still vague.

      We talked a bit around the fire about the storm that the Chief had noted when we left. Ed thought it would fizzle out. I think I had a feeling then that it wasn't just a short-lived freak. I think I had an idea we might see something of it.

      Next morning there was just the faintest trace of extra chill in the air. I'm used to Wyoming mornings and I know just how cold it ought to be at sunrise and how hot. This morning it was just the slightest bit chillier.

      "That Canadian Cold Front must have reached the other side of the mountains," I said, waving towards the great rampart of the Rockies to the East. "We're probably feeling the only tendril of it to get over."

      "That's sort of odd," Ed said. "There shouldn't be any getting over at all. It must be a very powerful front."

      I nodded and wondered what the boys in the bureau were getting on it. Probably snowfall in the northern part of the state. If I had known what the Chief knew that morning, I might have started back in a hurry. But we didn't and I guess we saw something that no one else has as a result.

      For at the bureau, the Chief knew at morning that we were in for some extraordinary weather. He predicted for the Rock Springs paper the wildest storm ever. You see the Southern Warm Front had definitely gotten a salient through by at time. It was already giving Salt Lake City one of the hottest days on record and what was more the warm wave was coming our way steadily.

      The next thing was that storm from the west. It was growing smaller and tighter again and had passed over Idaho Falls two hours ago raging and squawling. It was heading in our direction like an arrow from a bow.

      And finally the Cold Front had done the impossible. It was beginning to sweep over the heights and to swoop down into the Divide basin, heading straight for the Warm Front coming north.

      And there was Ed and I with a premonition and nothing more. We were riding along right into the conflux of the whole mess and we were looking for meteors. We were looking for what we expected to be some big craters or pockmarks in the ground and a bunch of pitted iron scattered around a vicinity of several miles.

      Towards ten that morning we came over a slight rise and dipped down into a bowl-shaped region. I stopped and stared around. Ed wheeled and came back.

      "What's up?" he asked.

      "Notice anything funny in the air?" I asked and gave a deep sniff.

      Ed drew in some sharp breaths and stared around.

      "Sort of odd," he finally admitted. "Nothing I can place but it's sort of odd."

      "Yes," I answered. "Odd is the word. I can't place anything wrong but it seems to smell differently than the air did a few minutes ago." I stared around and wrinkled my brow.

      "I think I know now," I finally said. "The temperature's changed somewhat. It's warmer."

      Ed frowned. "Colder, I'd say."

      I became puzzled. I waved my hands through the air a bit. "I think you're right, I must be wrong. Now it feels a bit colder."

      Ed walked his horse a bit. I stared slowly after him.

      "Y'know," I finally said, "I think I've got it. It's colder but it smells like warm air. I don't know if you can quite understand, what I'm driving at. It smells as if the temperature should be steaming yet actually it's sort of chilly. It doesn't smell natural."

      Ed nodded. He was puzzled and so was I. There was something wrong here. Something that got on our nerves.

      Far ahead I saw something sparkle. I stared as we rode and then mentioned it to Ed. He looked too.

      There was something, no, several things that glistened far off at the edge of the bowl near the next rise. They looked like bits of glass.

      "The meteor, maybe?" queried Ed. I shrugged. We rode steadily on in that direction. "Say, something smells funny here," Ed remarked, stopping again.

      I came up next to him. He was right. The sense of strangeness in the air had increased the nearer we got to the glistening things. It was still the same—warm-cold. There was something else again. Something like vegetation in the air. Like something growing only there still wasn't any more growth than the usual cacti and sage. It smelled differently from any other growing things and yet it smelled like vegetation.

      It was unearthly, that air. I can't describe it any other way. It was unearthly. Plant smells that couldn't come from any plant or forest I had ever encountered, a cold warmness unlike anything that meteorology records.

      Yet it wasn't bad, it wasn't frightening. It was just peculiar. It was mystifying.

      We could see the sparkling things now. They were like СКАЧАТЬ