"Anderson, Poul - Man-Kzin Wars - Inconstant Star" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anderson Poul)

snarled.
For an instant, neither being moved. Ten meters fi,om him, the kzin stood
knife-sharp in Saxtorph's
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 4 Poul Anderson
awareness. It was as if he could count every redorange hair of the pelt.
Round yellow eyes glared at him out of the catlike face, above the mouthful
of fiLngs. Bat-wing ears were folded out of sight into the fur, for combat.
The naked tail was angled past a columnar thigh, stiffly held. The claws
were out, jet-black, on all four digits of either hand. Except for a phone
on his left wrist, the kzin was unclad. That seemed to make even greater his
250 centimeters of height, his barrel thickness.
Before and behind the two, Ranzau Passage curved away. Windows in the
wallfronts were empty, doors closed, signs turned off; workers had gone
home for the nightwatch. They were always few, anyway. This industrial
district had been devoted largely to the production of spaceship equipment
which the hyperdrive was making as obsolete as fission power.
There was no time to be afraid. "Hey, wait a minute, friend," Saxtorph
heard himself exclaim automatically, "I never saw you before, never did you
any harm, didn't even jostle you-"
Of course that was useless, whether or not the kzin knew English. Saxtorph
hadn't adopted the stance which indicated peacefulness. It would have put
him off balance. The kzin bounded at him.
Saxtorph released the tension in his right knee and swayed aside. Coming
up,spin, his speed suddenly lessening his weight, the kzin-definitely not
a veteran of space-went by too fast to change direction at once. As he
passed, almost brushing the man, the gingery smell of his excitement
filling the air, Saxtorph thrust fingers at an eye. That was just about the
only vulnerable point when a human was unarmed. The kzin yowled; echoes
rang.
Saxtorph was shouting, too. "Help, murder, help!" Somebody should be in
earshot of that. The kzin skidded to a halt and whipped about. It would
have been astounding how quick and agile his bulk was, if
 INCONSTANT STAIR 5

Saxtorph hadn't seen action on the ground during the war.
Again saving his breath, the man backed downspin, but slantwise, so that he
added little to his weight. Charging full-out, the kzin handicapped himself
much more. The extra drag on his mass meant nothing to his muscles,, but
confused his reflexes. Dodging about, Saxtorph concentrated first on
avoiding the sweeps of those claws, second on keeping the velocity parame-
ters unpredictably variable. From time to time he yelled.
One slash connected. It ripped his tunic from collar to belt, and the
undershirt beneath. Blood welled along shallow gashes. As he jumped clear,
Saxtorph cracked the blade of his hand onto the flat nose before him. It
did no real harm, but hurt. The kzin's eyes widened. The pupil of the
undamaged one grew narrower yet. He had seen the scars across his oppo-
nent's chest. This human had encountered at least one kzin before, face to
face.
But Saxtorph was fifteen years younger then, and equipped with a Gurkha