"Brown, Fredric - Arena UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brown Fredric)

Carson verified that the barrier was still operating, and then found
himself sitting in the sand beside it, suddenly too weak to stand up.
His leg throbbed steadily now and the pangs of thirst were severe. But those things paled beside the physical exhaustion that gripped his entire body.
Hell must be like this, he thought, the hell that the ancients had believed in. He fought to stay awake, and yet staying awake seemed futile, for there was nothing he could do while the barrier remained impregnable and the Roller stayed back out of range.
He tried to remember what he had read in books of archaeology about the methods of fighting used back in the days before metal and plastic. The stone missile had come first, he thought. Well, that he already had.
Bow and arrow? No; heТd tried archery once and knew his own ineptness even with a modern sportsmanТs dura-steel weapon, made for accuracy. With only the crude, pieced-together outfit he could make here, he doubted if he could shoot as far as he could throw a rock.
Spear? Well, he could make that. It would be useless at any distance, but would be a handy thing at close range, if he ever got to close range. Making one would help keep his mind from wandering, as it was beginning to do.
He was still beside one of the piles of stones. He sorted through it until he found one shaped roughly like a spearhead. With a smaller stone he began to chip it into shape, fashioning sharp shoulders on the sides so that if it penetrated it would not pull out again like a harpoon. A harpoon was better than a spear, maybe, for this crazy contest. If he could once get it into the Roller, and had a rope on it, he could pull the Roller up against the barrier and the stone blade of his knife would reach through that barrier, even if his hands wouldnТt.
The shaft was harder to make than the head, but by splitting and joining the main stems of four of the bushes, and wrapping thejoints with the tough but thin tendrils, he got a strong shaft about four feet long, and tied the stone head in a notch cut in one end. It was crude, but strong.
With the tendrils he made himself twenty feet of line. It was light and didnТt look strong, but he knew it would hold his weight and to spare. He tied one end of it to the shaft of the harpoon and the other end about his right wrist. At least, if he threw his harpoon across the barrier, heТd be able to pull it back if he missed.
He tried to stand up, to see what the Roller was doing, and found he couldnТt get to his feet. On the third try, he got as far as his knees and then fell flat again.
СIТve got to sleep,Т he thought. СIf a showdown came now, IТd be helpless. He could come up here and kill me, if he knew. IТve got to regain some strength.Т
Slowly, painfully, he crawled back from the barrier.
The jar of something thudding against the sand near him wakened him
from a confused and horrible dream to a more confused and horrible reality, and he opened his eyes again to blue radiance over blue sand.
How long had he slept? A minute? A day?
Another stone thudded nearer and threw sand on him. He got his arms under him and sat up. He turned round and saw the Roller twenty yards away, at the barrier.
It rolled off hastily as he sat up, not stopping until it was as far away as it could get.
HeТd fallen asleep too soon, he realized, while he was still in range of the RollerТs throwing. Seeing him lying motionless, it had dared come up to the barrier. Luckily, it didnТt realize how weak he was, or it could have stayed there and kept on throwing stones.
He started crawling again, this time forcing himself to keep going until he was as far as he could go, until the opaque wall of the arenaТs outer shell was only a yard away.
Then things slipped away again....
When he awoke, nothing about him was changed, but this time he knew that he had slept a long while. The first thing he became aware of was the inside of his mouth; it was dry, caked. His tongue was swollen.
Something was wrong, he knew, as he returned slowly to full awareness. He felt less tired, the stage of utter exhaustion had passed. But there was pain, agonizing pain. It wasnТt until he tried to move that he knew that it came from his leg.
He raised his head and looked down at it. It was swollen below the knee, and the swelling showed even half-way up his thigh. The plant tendrils he had tied round the protective pad of leaves now cut deeply into his flesh.
To get his knife under that imbedded lashing would have been impossible. Fortunately, the final knot was over the shin bone where the vine cut in less deeply than elsewhere. He was able, after an effort, to untie the knot.
A look under the pad of leaves showed him the worst: infection and blood poisoning. Without drugs, without even water, there wasnТt a thing he could do about it, except die when the poison spread through his system.
He knew it was hopeless, then, and that heТd lost, and with him, humanity. When he died here, out there in the universe he knew, all his friends, everybody, would die too. Earth and the colonized planets would become the home of the red, rolling, alien Outsiders.
It was that thought which gave him courage to start crawling, almost blindly, towards the barrier again, pulling himself along by his arms and hands.
There was a chance in a million that heТd have strength left when he got there to throw his harpoon-spear just once, and with deadly effect, if
the Roller would come up to the barrier, or if the barrier was gone.
It took him years, it seemed, to get there. The barrier wasnТt gone. It was as impassable as when heТd first felt it.
The Roller wasnТt at the barrier. By raising himself up on his elbows, he could see it at the back of its part of the arena, working on a wooden framework that was a half-completed duplicate of the catapult heТd destroyed.
It was moving slowly now. Undoubtedly it had weakened, too.
Carson doubted that it would ever need that second catapult. HeТd be dead, he thought, before it was finished.

His mind must have slipped for a moment, for he found himself beating his fists against the barrier in futile rage, and made himself stop. He closed his eyes, tried to make himself calm.
СHello,Т said a voice.
It was a small, thin voice. He opened his eyes and turned his head. It was a lizard.
СGo away,Т Carson wanted to say. СGo away; youТre not really there, or youТre there but not really talking. IТm imagining things again.Т
But he couldnТt talk; his throat and tongue were past all speech with the dryness. He closed his eyes again.
СHurt,Т said the voice. СKill. Hurt Ч kill. Come.Т
He opened his eyes again. The blue ten-legged lizard was still there. It ran a little way along the barrier, came back, started off again, and came back.
СHurt,Т it said. СKill. Come.Т
Again it started off, and came back. Obviously it wanted Carson to follow it along the barrier.
He closed his eyes again. The voice kept on. The same three meaningless words. Each time he opened his eyes, it ran off and came back.
СHurt. Kill. Come.Т
Carson groaned. Since there would be no peace unless he followed the thing, he crawled after it.
Another sound, a high-pitched, squealing, came to his ears. There was something lying in the sand, writhing, squealing. Something small, blue, that looked like a lizard.
He saw it was the lizard whose legs the Roller had pulled off, so long ago. It wasnТt dead; it had come back to life and was wriggling and screaming in agony.
СHurt,Т said the other lizard. СHurt. Kill. Kill.Т