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

Carson understood. He took the flint knife from his belt and killed the tortured creature. The live lizard scurried off.
Carson turned back to the barrier. He leaned his hands and head
against it and watched the Roller, far back, working on the new catapult.
СI could get that far,Т he thought, Сif I could get through. If I could get through, I might win yet. It looks weak, too. I mightЧТ
And then there was another reaction of hopelessness, when pain sapped his will and he wished that he were dead, envying the lizard heТd just killed. It didnТt have to live on and suffer.
He was pushing on the barrier with the flat of his hands when he noticed his arms, how thin and scrawny they were. He must really have been here a long time, for days, to get as thin as that.
For a while he was almost hysterical again, and then came a time of deep calm and thought.
The lizard he had just killed had crossed the barrier, still alive. It had come from the RollerТs side; the Roller had pulled off its legs and then tossed it contemptuously at him and it had come through the barrier.
It hadnТt been dead, merely unconscious. A live lizard couldnТt go through the barrier, but an unconscious one could. The barrier was not a barrier, then, to living flesh, but to conscious flesh. It was a mental protection, a mental hazard.
With that thought, Carson started crawling along the barrier to make his last desperate gamble, a hope so forlorn that only a dying man would have dared try it.
He moved along the barrier to the mound of sand, about four feet high, which heТd scooped out while trying Ч how many days ago? Ч to dig under the barrier or to reach water. That mound lay right at the barrier, its farther slope half on one side of the barrier, half on the other.
Taking with him a rock from the pile nearby, he climbed up to the top of the dune and lay there against the barrier, so that if the barrier were taken away heТd roll on down the short slope, into the enemy territory.
He checked to be sure that the knife was safely in his rope belt, that the harpoon was in the crook of his left arm and that the twenty-foot rope fastened to it and to his wrist. Then with his right hand he raised the rock with which he would hit himself on the head. Luck would have to be with him on that blow; it would have to be hard enough to knock him out, but not hard enough to knock him out for long.
He had a hunch that the Roller was watching him, and would see him roll down through the barrier, and come to investigate. It would believe he was dead, he hoped Ч he thought it had probably drawn the same deduction about the nature of the barrier that he had. But it would come cautiously; he would have a little time Ч He struck himself.

Pain brought him back to consciousness, a sudden, sharp pain in his hip that was different from the pain in his head and leg. He had, thinking things out before he had struck himself, anticipated that very pain, even
hoped for it, and had steeled himself against awakening with a sudden movement.
He opened his eyes just a slit, and saw that he had guessed rightly. The Roller was coming closer. It was twenty feet away; the pain that had awakened him was the stone it had tossed to see whether he was alive or dead. He lay still. It came closer, fifteen feet away, and stopped again. Carson scarcely breathed.
As nearly as possible, he was keeping his mind a blank, lest its telepathic ability detect consciousness in him. And with his mind blanked out that way, the impact of its thoughts upon his mind was shattering.
He felt sheer horror at the alienness, the di~Jшrentness of those thoughts, conveying things that he felt but could not understand or express, because no terrestrial language had words, no terrestrial brain had images to fit them. The mind of a spider, he thought, or the mind of a praying mantis or a Martian sand-serpent, raised to intelligence and put in telepathic rapport with human minds, would be a homely familiar thing, compared to this.
He understood now that the Entity had been right: Man or Roller, the universe was not a place that could hold them both.
Closer. Carson waited until it was only feet away, until its clawed tentacles reached out....
Oblivious to agony now, he sat up, raised and flung the harpoon with all the strength that remained to him. As the Roller, deeply stabbed by the harpoon, rolled away, Carson tried to get to his feet to run after it. He couldnТt do that; he fell, but kept crawling.
It reached the end of the rope, and he was jerked forward by the pull on his wrist. It dragged him a few feet and then stopped. Carson kept going, pulling himself towards it hand over hand along the rope. It stopped there, tentacles trying in vain to pull out the harpoon. It seemed to shudder and quiver, and then realized that it couldnТt get away, for it rolled back towards him, clawed tentacles reaching out.
Stone knife in hand, he met it. He stabbed, again and again, while those horrid claws ripped skin and flesh and muscle from his body.
He stabbed and slashed, and at last it was still.

A bell was ringing, and it took him a while after heТd opened his eyes to tell where he was and what it was. He was strapped into the seat of his scouter, and the visiplate before him showed only empty space. No Outsider ship and no impossible planet.
The bell was the communications plate signal; someone wanted him to switch power into the receiver. Purely reflex action enabled him to reach forward and throw the lever.
The face of Brander, captain of the Magellan, mother-ship of his group of scouters, flashed into the screen. His face was pale and his black eyes
glowing with excitement.
СMagellan to Carson,Т he snapped. СCome on in. The fightТs over. WeТve won!Т
The screen went blank; Brander would be signalling the other scouters of his command.
Slowly, Carson set the controls for the return. Slowly, unbelievingly, he unstrapped himself from the seat and went back to get a drink at the coldwater tank. For some reason, he was unbelievably thirsty. He drank six glasses.
He leaned there against the wall, trying to think.
Had it happened? He was in good health, sound, uninjured. His thirst had been mental rather than physical; his throat hadnТt been dry.
He pulled up his trouser leg and looked at the calf. There was a long white scar there, but a perfectly healed scar; it hadnТt been there before. He zipped open the front of his shirt and saw that his chest and abdomen were criss-crossed with tiny, almost unnoticeable, perfectly healed scars.
It had happened!
The scouter, under automatic control, was already entering the hatch of the mother-ship. The grapples pulled it into its individual lock, and a moment later a buzzer indicated that the lock was airfilled. Carson opened the hatch and stepped outside, went through the double door of the lock.
He went right to BranderТs office, went in, and saluted.
Brander still looked dazed. СHi, Carson,Т he said. СWhat you missed; what a show!Т
СWhat happened, sir?Т
СDonТt know, exactly. We fired one salvo, and their whole fleet went up in dust! Whatever it was jumped from ship to ship in a flash, even the ones we hadnТt aimed at and that were out of range! The whole fleet disintegrated before our eyes, and we didnТt get the paint of a single ship scratched!
СWe canТt even claim credit for it. Must have been some unstable component in the metal they used, and our sighting shot just set it off. Man, too bad you missed all the excitement!Т
Carson managed a sickly ghost of a grin, for it would be days before heТd be over the impact of his experience, but the captain wasnТt watching.
СYes, sir,Т he said. Common sense, more than modesty, told him heТd be branded as the worst liar in space if he ever said any more than that. СYes, sir, too bad I missed all the excitement....Т