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

not. "It's our custom to kill our meat before eating it."
Binichi bubbled.
"This will be too new to the Tomah for ritual," he said.
Reinforcement for this remark came a moment or two later when the
envoy came back up the near wall of the gully to rejoin them.
"This is a paradise of plenty, this land," he said. "Only once in my life
before was I ever lucky enough to taste meat." He lifted his head to them.
"Shall we go on?"
"We should try to get to some water soon," said Chuck, glancing at
Binichi.
"I have been searching for it," said the envoy. "Now I smell it not far off.
We should reach it before dark." They went on; and gradually the gullies
thinned out and they found themselves on darker earth, among more and
larger trees. Just as the sunset was reddening the sky above the upthrust
outline of the near hills, they entered a small glen where a stream trickled
down from a higher slope and spread out into a small pool. Binichi trotted
past them without a word, and plunged in.


Chuck woke when the morning sun was just beginning to touch the glen.
For a moment he lay still under the mass of small-leaved branches with
which he had covered himself the night before, a little bewildered to find
himself no longer on the raft. Then memory returned and with it sensation,
spreading through the stiff limbs of his body.
For the first time, he realized that his strength was ebbing. He had had
first the envoy and then Binichi to worry about, and so he had been able to
keep his mind off his own state.
His stomach was hollow with hunger that the last night's meager rations
he had packed from the raft had done little to assuage. His muscles were
cramped from the unusual exercise and he had the sick, dizzy feeling that
comes from general overexposure. Also, right now, his throat was dry and
aching for water.
He pulled himself up out of the leaves, stumbled to the edge of the pond
and fell to hands and knees on its squashy margin. He drank; and as he
raised his head and ran a wrist across his lips after quenching his thirst, the
head of Binichi parted the surface almost where his lips had been.
"Time to go?" said the Lugh. He turned to one side and heaved himself
up out onto the edge of the bank. "We'll leave in just a little while," Chuck
said. "I'm not fully awake yet." He sat back stiffly and exhaustedly on the
ground and stretched his arms out to bring some life back into them. He
levered himself to his feet and walked up and down, swinging his arms.
After a little while his protesting muscles began to warm a little and loosen.
He got one of the high-calorie candy bars from his food pack and chewed
on it.
"All right," he said. And the envoy turned to lead the way up, out of the
glen.
With the bit of food, the exercise, and the new warmth of the sun, Chuck
began to feel better as they proceeded. They were breasting the near
slopes of the hills now, and shortly before noon they came over the top of
them, and paused to rest.