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

us up."
"Your people will find us, but they can't find us here?" said Binichi.
"That's right." Chuck looked at the Lugh's short limbs. "Are you up to
making about a hundred-mile trip overland?"
"As you've reminded me before," said Binichi, "I made a promise. It will
help, though, if I can find water to go into from time to time."
Chuck turned to the envoy.
"Can we find bodies of water as we go?"
"I don't know this country," said the Tomah, speaking to Chuck. "But there
should be water; and I'll watch for it."
"We two could go ahead," said Chuck, turning back to the Lugh. "And
maybe we could work some way of getting a vehicle back here to carry
you."
"I've never needed to be carried," said Binichi, and turned away abruptly.
"Shall we go?"
They went.


Striking back from the stoniness of the beach, they passed through a belt
of shallow land covered with shrub and coarse grass. Chuck, watching the
envoy, half-expected him to turn and feed on some of this as they passed,
but the Tomah went straight ahead. Beyond the vegetated belt, they came
on dunes of coarse sand, where the Lugh тАУ although he did not complain,
any more than the envoy had when he fell overboard from the raft тАУ had
rough going with his short limbs. This stretched for a good five miles; but
when they had come at last to firmer ground, the first swellings of the
foothills seemed not so far ahead of them.
They were now in an area of small trees with numbers of roots sprouting
from the trunk above ground level, and of sticklike plants resembling cacti.
The envoy led them, his four narrow limbs propelling him with a curious
smoothness over the uncertain ground as if he might at any moment break
into a run. However, he regulated his pace to that of the Lugh, who was the
slowest in the party, though he showed no signs as yet of discomfort or of
tiring.
This even space was broken with dramatic suddenness as they crossed
a sort of narrow earth-bridge or ridge between two of the gullies. Without
any warning, the envoy wheeled suddenly and sprinted down the almost
perpendicular slope on his left, zigzagging up the gully bed as if chasing
something and into a large hole in the dry, crumbling earth of the further
bank. A sudden thin screaming came from the hole and the envoy tumbled
out into the open with a small furry creature roughly in the shape of a weasel
and about the size of a large rabbit. The screaming continued for a few
seconds. Chuck turned his head away, shaken.
He was aware of Binichi staring at him.
"What's wrong?" asked the Lugh. "You showed no emotion when I hurt
the тАУ" His translator failed on a word.
"What?" said Chuck. "I didn't understand. When you hurt what?"
 "One of those who would have eaten the Tomah."
"I . . ." Chuck hesitated. He could not say that it was because this small
land creature had had a voice to express its pain while the sea-dweller had