"Alan Dean Foster - Humanx 1 - Midworld" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

Three days out from the village now and he had
encountered nothing worth taking. Plenty of bush-
ackers, but he would walk the surface itself before he
would return to the village with only a bushacker or
two. He burned with remembrance of Losting's return
with the carcass of the breeder, remembrance of the ad-
miration and acclaim accorded the big man. Small
things, frivolous things, but nevertheless he burned.

The breeder had been as big as Losting, all claws
and pincers, but it was those threatening claws and
pincers that were filled with the best white meat, and
Losting had laid them at the feet of Brightly Go and
she hadn't refused them. That was when Bom had
stormed out of the village on his present, and thus
far futile, hunt.

He had never been able to match Losting in size
or strength, but he had skill. Even as a child he had
been clever, faster than Tlis friends, and had taken
every opportunity to prove it. Though none questioned
his abilities now, he would have been appalled to
learn that everyone considered him a bit reckless, a
touch crazy. They wouldn't have understood Bom's
constant need to prove himself to others. In this one
way, he was a throwback.

Now he was soloing again, always a dangerous sit-
uation. He concentrated on shutting himself off from
the world, blended with the foliage, became a part of
the prickly green, virtually invisible in the meandering
pathway of the cubble.

The mist had fled, rising into the Second Level.
The air was clear although still moist. Bom's view of
the big epiphytic bromeliad several meters down the
vine was unobstructed. The huge parasitic blossom
grew from the center of the cubble, parasite feeding
on parasite. Broad spatulate leaves of olive and black
backed the green bloom. Thick petals grew tightly to-
gether, curving out and up to form a water-tight basin.
As was usual following the evening rain, it was now

filled with fresh water a meter deep. Eventually, some-
thing worth killing would come to partake of it.

Around him the forest awoke, the hylaeal chorus of
barks, squeaks, chirps, howls, and screeches taking up
where less loquacious nocturnal cousins had left off.