"Gordon R. Dickson - 8 Short Stories and Novellas" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

One of the scavengers was just coming up under the Tomah. The streak
of watery fire that was Binichi converged upon him and his heavy shape
shot struggling from the surface, the sound of a dull impact heavy in the
night. Then the phosphorescence of Binichi's path was among the others,
striking right and left as a swordfish strikes on his run among a school of
smaller feed fish. The scavengers scattered into darkness, all but the one
Binichi had first hit, which was flopping upon the surface of the moonlit sea
as if partially paralyzed.
Binichi broke surface himself, plowing back toward the Tomah. His head
butted the envoy and a second later the envoy was skidding and skittering
like a toy across the water's surface to the raft. A final thrust at the raft's
edge sent him up and over it. He tumbled on his back on the raft's floor,
glittering with wetness; and, righting himself with one swift thrust of his claw,
he whirled, claw high, to face Binichi as the Lugh came sailing aboard.
Binichi sprang instantly erect on the curved spring of his tail; and Chuck,
with no time for thought, thrust himself between the two of them.
For a second Chuck's heart froze. He found himself with his right cheek
bare inches from the heavy double meat-choppers of the Tomah claw,
while, almost touching him on the left, the gaping jaws of the Lugh glinted
with thick, short scimitar-like teeth, and the fishy breath of the sea-dweller
filled his nostrils. In this momentary, murderous tableau they all hung
motionless for a long, breathless second. And then the Tomah claw sank
backward to the shiny back below it and the Lugh slid backward and down
upon his tail. Slowly, the two members of opposing races retreated each to
his own end of the raft.
Chuck, himself, sat down. And the burst of relieved breath that expelled
itself from his tautened lungs echoed in the black and moonlit world of the
seascape night.


III

Some two hours after sunrise, a line of land began to make its
appearance upon their further horizon. It mounted slowly, as the onshore
wind, and perhaps some current as well, drove them ahead. It was a barren,
semiarid and tropical coastline, with a rise of what appeared to be hills тАУ
light green with a sparse vegetation тАУ beyond it.
As they drifted closer, the shoreline showed itself in a thin pencil-mark of
foam. No outer line of reefs was apparent, but the beaches themselves
seemed to be rocky or nonexistent. Chuck turned to the Lugh.
"We need a calm, shallow spot to land in," he said. "Otherwise the raft's
liable to upset in the surf, going in."
Binichi looked at him, but did not answer.
"I'm sorry," said Chuck. "I guess I didn't explain myself properly. What I
mean is, I'm asking for your help again. If the raft upsets or has a hole torn
in it when we're landing, the envoy and I will probably drown. Could you find
us a fairly smooth beach somewhere and help us get to it?"
Binichi straightened up a little where he half-sat, half-lay propped against
the end of the raft where the thrust unit had been attached.
"I had been told," he said, "that you had oceans upon your own world."