"Dickson, Gordon - Dragon And The George Txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

"Blast it, Gorbash!" roared the voice he had been trying to ignore. "Wake up! Come on, boy, we've got to get down to the main cave. They've just captured one!"

"One... ?" Jim stammered. "One what?"

"A georgel A george! WAKE UP, GORBASH!" An enormous head with crocodile-sized jaws equipped with larger-than-crocodile-sized fangs thrust itself between Jim's eyes and the ceiling.

"I'm awake. I-" What he was seeing suddenly reg- istered on Jim's stunned mind and he burst out invol- untarily, "A dragon!"

"And just what would you expect your maternal grand-uncle to be, a sea lizard? Or are you having nightmares again? Wake up. It's Smrgol talking to you, boy. Smrgol! Come on, shake a wing and get flapping. They'll be expecting us in the main cave. Isn't every day we capture a george. Come on, now."

The fanged mouth whirled away. Blinking, Jim dropped his eyes from the vanishing apparition and caught sight of a huge tail, an armored tail with a row of sharp, bony plates running along its upper surface.

It swelled larger as it approached him-

It was his tail. He held up his arms in front of him. They were enormous. Also, they were thickly scaled with bony 20 plates uke those on his tail but much smaller-and his claws needed manicuring. Squinting at the claws, Jim became aware of a long muzzle stretching down and out from where his formerly "invisible" nose had been. He licked dry lips and a long, red, forked tongue darted out briefly in the smoky air.

"Gorbash!" thundered the voice once more; and Jim looked to see the other dragon face glaring at him from a stone doorway. It was in fact, he saw, the en- trance to the cave he was in. "I'm on my way. Catch up or not-it's up to you."

The other disappeared and Jim shook his head, be- wildered. What was going on here? According to Grottwold, no one else was supposed to be able to see him, let alone-

Dragons?

Dragons who talked... ?

To say nothing of his being-he, Jim Eckert-him- self a dragon...

That was the absolutely ridiculous part. He, a dragon? How could he be a dragon? Why would he be a dragon, even if there were such things as dragons? The whole thing must be some sort of hallucination.

Of course! He remembered, now. Grottwold had mentioned that what he would seem to be experienc- ing would be entirely subjective. What he was appar- ently seeing and hearing must be nothing more than a sort of nightmare, overlying whatever real place and people he had reached. A dream. He pinched himself.

-And jumped.

He had forgotten noticing that his "fingers" had claws on them. Large claws, and very sharp ones. If what he was experiencing was a dream, the elements of that dream were damned real!

But, dream or not, all he wanted was to find Angie and get out of here, back to the ordinary world. Only, where should he look for her? He had probably better find someone he could describe her to, and ask if she'd been seen. He should have asked whoever it was he had been "seeing" as the "dragon" trying to wake him up. What was it the other had been saying? Something about "capturing a george... ?"

What could a george be? Or was it George with a capital G? Maybe if some people here appeared as dragons, then others would appear as St. George, the dragon-slayer. But then, the other dragon had referred to "a" george. Perhaps the dragons called all ordinary, human-looking people by that name, which would mean that what they had really captured was proba- bly-

"Angie!" Jim erupted, suddenly putting two and two together.

He rolled to all four feet and lumbered across the cave. Emerging through its entrance, he found himself in a long torchlit corridor, down which a further dragon shape was rapidly receding. Concluding this must be the-what it had called itself-grand-uncle of the body Jim was in, Jim took after him, digging in his memory to turn up the name the other had used for himself.

"Wait for me, uh-Smrgol!" he called.

But the other dragon shape turned a comer and dis- appeared.

Coming up rapidly in pursuit, Jim noticed that the ceiling of the corridor was low, too low for his twitch- ing wings, which he could now see out of the comers of his eyes evidently trying to spread themselves in re- flexive response to his speed. He turned the comer himself and emerged through a large entrance into a huge, vaulted chamber that seemed jammed to over- flowing with dragons, gray and massive under the light of a number of wall torches that cast large shadows on the high granite walls. Not watching where he was go- ing, Jim ran squarely into the back of another dragon.

"Gorbash!" thundered this individual, jerking his head around and identifying himself by this cry as the maternal grand-uncle again. "A little respect, blast you, boy!"