"Philip Jose Farmer - The Gate of Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

tails. These raised their heads and then shied away but uttered no baas. Two Hawks wondered if
they had vocal cords; it seemed unlikely that normal sheep would have been silent during the long
time he had listened in the woods.
Now he could hear the clucking of hens from behind the house and the snort of some large
animals in the barn. The house itself was built in the shape of an L with the long part of the leader
facing the road. There was no porch. Big thick logs, the interstices between them chinked up by a
whitish substance, formed the structure of the house. The roof was thatched.
On the smooth wood of the door was painted a crude representation of an eagle. Above it was
painted a large open blue eye over which was a black X.
Two Hawks raised the wooden latch that locked the door and pushed in. He had no chance to
follow his plan to walk boldly in. At that moment, a woman walked around the corner of the house.
She gasped and stood still, staring at them with large brown eyes. Her brown skin turned pale.
Two Hawks smiled at her and greeted her in what he hoped was passable Rumanian. He had
tried to gain some fluency in the language from a fellow officer of Rumanian descent while
stationed in Tobruk, but he had not had time to master more than a few stock phrases and the names
of some common items.
 The woman looked puzzled, said something in an unfamiliar tongue, and then walked towards
them. She had a rather pretty face, although her shape was a little too squat and her legs too thick
for Two HawksтАЩ taste. Her hair was blue-black, parted in the middle and plastered down with some
sort of oil. Two braided pigtails hung down her back. She wore a necklace of red and tightly coiled
seashells, an open-necked blouse of blue cotton, a wide belt of leather with a copper clasp, and a
skirt of bright red cotton. It reached to her ankles. Her feet were bare and smeared with dirt, mud,
and what looked like chicken excrement. A real peasant, thought Two Hawks. But if sheтАЩs friendly,
thatтАЩs all that counts.
He tried some more Rumanian, got nowhere, and switched to German. She replied in the same
guttural language she had used before. Although it did not sound Slavic to him, he spoke in
Bulgarian. His knowledge of this was even more limited than his Rumanian. She evidently did not
understand this either. However, she spoke the third time in a different speech than her first. This
resembled Slavic; he tried again with Bulgarian, then with Russian, and Hungarian. She only
shrugged and repeated the phrase. After hearing several more repetitions, Two Hawks understood
that she was doing as he was, that is, trying out a foreign language of which she knew very little.
But when she saw that Two Hawks did not understand a word of it, she seemed to be relieved.
She even smiled at him and then fell back into the first tongue she had used.
Two Hawks frowned. There was something familiar about it. Almost, he could catch a word
here and there. Almost, but not quite.
He said to OтАЩBrien, тАЬWeтАЩll have to try sign language. I. . .тАЭ
He stopped; obviously alarmed, she was pointing past him. He turned just in time to catch the
flash of sun from the metal of a vehicle through the trees. The forest was thin by the road, and he
could see across another field, perhaps three hundred yards long, to a row of trees at right angles to
him. This must line the road, which either turned there or was crossed by another road.
тАЬSomebody coming in a car,тАЭ he said. тАЬWeтАЩd better take off. WeтАЩll have to trust this girl or else
take her with us. And if we do that, we may have to kill her. In which case, we might as well do it
now.тАЭ
тАЬNo!тАЭ OтАЩBrien said. тАЬWhat the hell. . .!тАЭ
тАЬDonтАЩt worry,тАЭ Two Hawks said. тАЬIf weтАЩre captured, we might just end up in a prison camp. But
if we kill the girl, we might get executed as common criminals.тАЭ
The woman placed a hand on his wrist and pulled him towards the corner of the house while she
gestured with the other hand and talked swiftly. It was evident that she wanted to take them away
from the approaching vehicle or perhaps hide them.
Two Hawks shrugged and decided that there was little else to do. If they took to the woods, they