"Avram Davidson - Bumberboom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davidson Avram)

announced poverty; well may one envy the rich of this Section. Now-- as a reward for my accompanying
you back here, to say nothing of the work of topping that mountainous hill to obtain intelligence for you--
let you replenish, and quickly! my budget here with as many such smokelings as will fit. Then you may fill
the chinks and interstices with the aforesaid dried fruits. No, no, another word not. I am too modest to
appreciate the compliments you would pay me by a continued solicitation of my presence. One jug of
black beer I may be persuaded to take; the honey I must forego until another occasion. So.
"Fortune favor you, senior Ronan's. One further deed we may do each other. You will not need to
inform your Dwerfymen of my presence or passage; I, in turn, will not need to inform them-- unless I am
stopped by them, of course-- hem!-- of your treasonous grimaces and repetitions of the fell name of
Bandy. Sun shine upon you, and forfend the shadow of the Juggernaut Bumberboom!"
Thus, laughing loudly, he left the ancient as he had first found him, weeping and alarmed, and went on
his way. Indeed, he had fully retraced his way to the top of the hill before he realized that he had not
asked the question. He scowled and fingered his long moustaches, deliberating a return, but finally
decided against it. "Such an old queery man would know no medicine of any worth," he assured himself.
"Let alone wit of this most vital matter. But I will keep in mind his words about the vaporous device
which pumps and drains the Erst Marshes, for-- if, indeed, it is not a mere vapor of the senior himself
(and how he cozened me out of half a hare; shame!)-- for such medicine may well imply the presence of
more. Hem, hem, we will see."
The road was riddled and griddled with great ruts from the gigantic gunwheels. Amidst clots of filth lay
a man who had unjudiciously interposed his neck between wheel and road, and a child who mewed and
yippered at Mallian but made no attempt to walk. Man and child, quick and dead, looked as like as the
spit of their mouths-- blond hair so pale as to be almost as white as that of the People of the Moon--
equally pale, but pale, pale blue of small, small eyes-- a sort of squinting, blankness of expression-- and
slack, silly mouths. Idiot father and idiot son, was Mallian's impression. And he wondered how they had
come to be with the gun crew. And he went on.
Warm was the day and the beer soon went down swift. Mallian was about to hoist the jug for the last
time when he heard a too-well-remembered thudding on the road and looked, quickly, from one to
another side for cover. But the land was flat for many arms' lengths on either side of the road. "Curse!" he
muttered and reached with a sigh for sling and stones, when he bethought that he might hide-- did he trot
fast-- behind a certain maple tree.
Mallian trotted, saw the ditch behind the tree, tumbled into it cod over cop, and had just time to right
himself and peer out as the thudthud-thudthud of hooves came by, and he saw the mounts.
There were two of them, fat and hairy barrel-bodied Bandy ponies-- a description which would as
well have fit the two squat Dwerfymen riders whose short legs fit the curves of their mounts' sides as
though steamed and bent thereto. Large heads, broad backs, beards which would reach to their
protruding navels if not whipped away by wind, faces neither grim nor alarmed but intent and determined,
the Bandies came at the gallop. The scabbards of their slashers were on their backs, within quick reach
of their hands. They looked to neither side nor did they speak; in a moment more they were gone.
***


But the crossroads, when he came to them, swarmed with people. "They have taken everything,
everything eatable in my house!" a woman wailed, gesturing to the empty shelves revealed by the open
doors.
But another cried, "Take>?" I did not wait for them to take-- I gave them all there was to eat in
mine!"
"Wisely done, wisely done!" a man agreed, wiping from his red face a sweat which came from
agitation rather than heat. "Food can always be purchased, food is even now growing and grazing-- food,
in short, can be replaced. But how can one replace that destroyed by the destruction sure to be caused if
the Crew of Bumberboom were to fire even one shot from their enormous cannon? Surely it would