"Philip Jose Farmer - Riverworld 2 - The Fabulous Riverboat" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

spear, the chunk of my sharp steel biting into flesh, the
spurt of blood. I have become as impatient as a penned-up
stallion who smells a mare in heat; I would mate with
Death."
"Bull!" Joe Miller said. "You're jutht ath bad ath Tham
in your vay. You're thcared, too, but you cover it up vith
your big mouth."
"I do not understand your mangled speech," Bloodaxe
said. "Apes should not attempt the tongue of man."
"You underthtand me all right," Joe said.
"Keep quiet, Joe," Clemens said. He looked upRiver.
Two miles away, the plains on each side of The River
dwindled away as the mountains curved inward to create
straits not more than a quarter mile wide. The water
boiled at the bottom of the cliffs, which were perhaps
3,000 feet high. On the cliff-tops, on both sides, unidenti-
fied objects glittered in the sun.
A half mile below the straits, thirty galleys had formed
three crescents. And, aided by the swift current and sixty
oars each, they were speeding toward the three intruders.
Clemens viewed them through his telescope and then
said, "Each has about forty warriors aboard and two
rocket-launchers. We're in a hell of a trap. And our own
rockets have been in storage so long, the powder's likely to

be crystallized. They'll go off in the tubes and blow us to
kingdom come.
"And those things on top of the cliffs. Apparatus for
projecting Greek fire?"
A man brought the king's armor: a triple-layered leather
helmet with imitation leather wings and a nosepiece, a
leather cuirass, leather breeches and a shield. Another
man brought a bundle of spears: yew shafts and flint tips.
The rocket crew, all women, placed a projectile in the
swivable launching tube. The rocket was six feet long, not
counting the guide stick, built of bamboo, and looked ex-
actly like a Fourth of July rocket. Its warhead contained
twenty pounds of black gunpowder in which were many
tiny chips of stone: shrapnel.
Joe Miller, the deck creaking beneath his 800 pounds,
went below to get his armor and weapons. Clemens put on
a helmet and slung a shield over his shoulder, but he
would not use a cuirass or leggings. Although he feared
wounds, he was even more frightened of drowning because
of the heavy armor if he fell into The River.
Clemens thanked whatever gods there were that he had
been lucky enough to fall in with Joe Miller. They were
blood-brothers now-even if Clemens had fainted during
the ceremony, which demanded mingling of blood and
some even more painful and repulsive acts. Miller was to