"Avram Davidson - The Kar-chee Reign" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davidson Avram)

anticipating assent lit up Tom-small's broad and open face. Lors went on,
"But right now we have to get meat. So: it's downward ho for us. Let me
tell you the plan.
"There's a spring which the deer favor. And we usually set salt there for
them, as a further attraction. The boys will go ahead and around to beat
them back this wayтАФif there are any there now. I'll show you, by and by,
where we crouch for them along their trail. With three bows, we ought to
have luck. Oh! SayтАФyou're all right for hunting, aren't you? I mean, you
haven't touched a corpse or a cat or a fluxy female today, have you?"
Tom-small shook his head. "That's all right, then."
But Duro wasn't sure it was all right. "How about Mia?" he asked. "You
were touching her!"
Lors had forgotten. His heart gave a thump, and the blood ran into,
then away from his face. How could he have forgotten? But after a second
he said, "No, I'm sure it's all right. She knows better; she wouldn't have let
me, ifтАФ Besides, Popa saw me. He must think it's all right, too, or he
wouldn't have sent me."
Satisfied, they started off down the down-slope branch of the fork. Far
off below, through a break in the hills, they saw the blue sea. Lors pointed.
"That's where the first Rowan landed," he said.
Tom-small looked impressed. "Before the Devils came," he said.
Duro, looked at him. "How could that be?" he asked. "If the Devils
hadn't come, Rowan would have stayed where he was and not come here."
The young guest looked confused. Then, dismissing the need to figure
the matter out, he said, "Well, anyway, it was a long time ago."


It had been, indeed.
And it had all begun much further ago than that.
Earth had become like a woman who has, after a long and painful labor,
given multiple birthтАж flat, empty, weary and bare. For the Earth was long
enough over the final wave of outward, star-bound emigrants for the last
trace of concern and excitement in it to have ebbed utterly away. And
there was, it seemed, nothing else.
It had begun calmly enough, this move to the known hospitable worlds
swimming around the distant stars. Mankind had waited long enough to
be patient at first. No one could say at just exactly what point it all
became a frenzy. The Earth went mad; contentedly, controlledly madтАж
and stayed so for centuries. For on the one hand there was instant and
continual concern to solve once and for all the old problem of
overpopulation. Those nations which were actually overpeopledтАФwhich
was most of themтАФwanted to make an end at last, forever, to crush and
hunger. The few that weren't did not and could not remain aloof, for they
wanted just as much an end to the fear that the overcrowded countries
would spill out of their borders in war. So all worked intently. The first
wave of migrants wanted just to get away. Their zeal was negative. But it
was nonetheless zeal. Then came those who wanted to claim a share of
what they heard was out thereтАФland, room, opportunity, adventure. Then
came those who wanted just to see for themselves what it was likeтАж they
said. The next wave went to join family and friends. Finally it became