"Gordon R. Dickson - Childe Cycle 04 - Tactics of Mistake" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

roared, dropped, plunged, jerked and finally skidded them all to a halt on a circle of scarred brown
concrete surrounded by broad-leaved jungleтАФa green backdrop laced with what seemed to be threads
of scarlet and bright yellow.
Shuffling out of the shuttleboat door into the bright sunlight, Cletus stepped a little aside from the
throng to get his bearings. Other than a small terminal building some fifty yards off, there was no obvious
sign of man except the shuttleboat and the concrete pad. The jungle growth towered over a hundred feet
high in its surrounding circle. An ordinary, rather pleasant tropical day, Cletus thought. He looked about
for MondarтАФand was abruptly jolted by a something like a soundless, emotional thunderclap.
Even as it jarred him, he recognized it from its reputation. It was "reorientation shock"тАФthe abrupt
impact of a whole spectrum of differences from the familiar experienced all at once. His
absent-mindedness as he had stepped out into this almost Earth-like scene had heightened its effect upon
him.
Now, as the shock passed, he recognized all at once that the sky was not blue so much as
bluish-green. The sun was larger and a deeper golden yellow than the sun of Earth. The red and yellow
threads in the foliage were not produced by flowers or vines, but by actual veins of color running through
the leaves. And the air was heavily humid, filled with odors that intermingled to produce a scent
something like that of a mixture of grated nutmeg and crushed grass stems. Also, it was vibrant with a
low-level but steady chorus of insect or animal cries ranging from the sounds like the high tones of a toy
tin flute to the mellow booming of an empty wooden barrel being thumpedтАФbut all with a creakiness
foreign to the voices of Earth.
Altogether the total impact of light, color, odor and sound, even now that the first shock was passed,
caught Cletus up in a momentary immobility, out of which he recovered to find Mondar's hand on his
elbow.
"Here comes the command car," Mondar was saying, leading him forward. The vehicle he mentioned
was just emerging from behind the terminal building with the wide shape of a passenger float-bus behind
it. "Unless you'd rather ride the bus with the luggage, the wives and the ordinary civilians?"
"Thanks, no. I'll join you," said Cletus.
"This way, then," said Mondar.
Cletus went with him as the two vehicles came up and halted. The command car was a military,
plasma-powered, air-cushion transport, with half-treads it could lower for unusually rough cross-country
going. Over all, it was like an armored version of the sports cars used for big game hunting. Eachan Khan
and Melissa were already inside, occupying one of the facing pair of passenger seats. Up front on the
open seat sat a round-faced young Army Spec 9 at the controls, with a dally gun beside him.
Cletus glanced at the clumsy hand weapon with interest as he climbed aboard the car over the
right-side treads. It was the first dally gun he had seen in use in the fieldтАФalthough he had handled and
even fired one back at the Academy. It was crossbreedтАФno, it was an out-and-out mongrel of a
weaponтАФdesigned originally as a riot-control gun and all but useless in the field, where a speck of dirt
could paralyze some necessary part of its complex mechanism inside the first half hour of combat.
Its name was a derivative from its original, unofficial designation of "dial-a-gun," which name proved
that even ordnance men were capable of humor. With proper adjustment it could deliver anything from a
single .29 caliber pellet slug to an eight-ounce, seeker-type canister shell. It was just the sort of
impractical weapon that set Cletus' tactical imagination perking over possible unorthodox employments of
it in unexpected situations.
 But he and Mondar were in the car now. With a hiss from its compressor, the command car's heavy
body rose ten inches from the concrete and glided off on its supporting cushion of air. An opening in the
jungle wall loomed before them; and a moment later they were sliding down a narrow winding road of
bonded earth, with two deep, weed-choked ditches on each side unsuccessfully striving to hold back the
wall of jungle that towered up on either side to arch thinly together, at last, over their heads.
"I'm surprised you don't burn back or spray-kill a cleared area on each side of the road," said Cletus
to Mondar.