"Philip Jose Farmer - WOT 2 - The Gates of Creation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

wondered how much of her story of their dealings with him was true. He would have to have a talk
with Theotormon some tune, at a safe distance from him, of course.

Vala stopped talking and seized Wolff's arm. He started to jerk away, thinking that she meant to
try some trick. But she was looking upwards with alarm and so was Rintrah.

III

THE FRONDS, SIXTY FEET HIGH, HAD HIDDEN THE OBJECT IN THE SKY. Now he saw a mass at least a
quarter-mile wide, fifty feet thick, and almost a mile long floating fifty feet in the air. It was
drifting with the wind, which came from an unknown quarter of the compass. In this world without
sun, north, south, east, and west meant nothing.



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"What is that?" he said.

"An island that floats in the air. Hurry. We have to get to the vil-lage before the attack
starts."

Wolff set off after the others. From time to tune, he looked up through the fronds at the
aeronesus. It was descending rather swiftly at the opposite end of the island. He caught up with
Vala and asked her how the floater could be navigated. She replied that its inhabit-ants used
valves in the giant bladders to release their hydrogen. This procedure required almost all the
natives, since each bladder-valve was operated by hand. During a descent, they would all be
occupied with the navigation.

"How do they steer it?"

"The bladders have vents. When the abutal want the island to go in one direction, they release gas
from banks of bladders on the side opposite to that in which they want to go. They don't get much
power thrust, but they're very skillful. Even so, they have to contend with the winds and don't
always maneuver effectively. We've been at-tacked twice before by the abutal, and both times they
missed our is-land. They'll drop sea-anchors-big stones on the ends of cables-to slow them down.
The first attackers settled down close to our island instead of just above it and had to content
themselves with an attack by sea. They failed."

She stopped, then said, "Oh, no! These must be the Ilmawir. Los help us."

At first, Wolff thought that the fifty craft that had launched from the floater were small
airplanes. Then, as they circled to land against the wind, he saw that they were gliders. The
wings, fifty feet long, were of some pale shimmering stuff and scalloped on the edges. A painted
image of an eye with crossed swords above it was on the un-derside of each wing. The fuselage was
an uncovered framework, and its structure and the rudder and ailerons were painted scarlet. The
pilot sat in a wickerwork basket just forward of the monowings. The nose of the craft was rounded
and had a long horn projecting to a length of about twenty feet in front of it. Like the horn of a
narwhal, Wolff thought. As he later found out, the horns were taken from a giant fish.