"Philip Jose Farmer - WOT 5 - The Lavalite World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

protruded, her cheeks were beginning to sink in, her large dark-blue eyes were
ringed with the shadows of fatigue. Her lips were cracked, and that once soft
white skin was dirty and rough-looking. Though she had sweat much in the
twelve days they'd been here, there were still traces of smoke on her neck.

"You don't look so good yourself," she said, smiling.

Normally, her voice was a rich contralto, but now it was gravelly.

She stood up. She was slim but broad-shouldered and full-breasted. She
was only two inches shorter than his six feet one inch, was as strong as any
man her weight, and inside fifty yards she could outrun him. Why not? She had
had ten thousand years to develop her physical potentialities.

She took a comb from the back pocket of her torn bellbottom trousers and
straightened out her long hair, as black as a Crow Indian's.

"There. Is that better?" she said, smiling. Her teeth were very white
and perfect. Only thirty years ago, she'd had tooth buds implanted, the
hundredth set in a series.

"Not bad for a starving dehydrated old woman," he said. "In fact, if I
was up to it ... "

He quit grinning, and he waved his hand to indicate the hilltops. "We've
got visitors."

It was difficult in this light to see if she'd turned pale. Her voice
was steady. "If they're bearing fruit, we'll eat."

He thought it better not to say that they might be eaten instead.

He handed her the beamer. It looked like a six-shooter revolver. But the
cartridges were batteries, of which only one now had a charge. The barrel
contained a mechanism which could be adjusted to shoot a ray that could cut
through a tree or inflict a slight burn or a stunning blow.

Kickaha went back to where his bow and a quiver of arrows lay. He was an
excellent archer, but so far only two of his arrows had struck game. The
animals were wary, and it had been impossible, except twice, to get close
enough to any to shoot. Both kills had been small gazelles, not enough to fill
the bellies of five adults in twelve days. Anana had gotten a hare with a
throw of her light axe, but a long-legged baboon had dashed out from behind a
hill, scooped it up, and run off with it.

Kickaha picked up the bow and quiver, and they walked three hundred feet
away from the sleepers. Here he lay down and went to sleep. His knife was
thrust upright into the ground, ready to be snatched in case of attack. Anana
had her beamer, a light throwing axe, and a knife for defense.