«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.
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.
