"Alan Dean Foster - Lost and Found" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

long, loose flap of soft, heavy flesh thrust inwardтАФa slick-skinned nightmare. Walker tried to put the
SUV in gear. Flap-mounted suckers latched onto his shoulder and left arm. It felt as if he were being
simultaneously attacked by a dozen vacuum cleaners. As he fought to put the SUV in reverse, he felt
himself being pulled out of the seat. For the first time in his life, he was truly and deeply sorry that he
had forgotten to fasten his seat belt. He told himself that there had not been enough time for him to do
so, even had he retained the presence of mind to remember to do it.

He did not scream, but he was hyperventilating rapidly, gasping in short, sharp intakes of breath.


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 LostandFound

Unceremoniously, the creature turned and began dragging him across the ground. Staggering to his feet,
Walker gripped the limb that was holding him, using both hands to tug at the part between the sucker-
lined flap and the massive body. As if surprised by the resistance, the creature turned. Looking for a
vulnerable place to kick and finding nothing recognizable, Walker settled for slamming his right foot
into the canyon between the two supportive limbs that likewise terminated in sucker-lined flaps (though
unlike the upper appendages, these were sheathed in open-topped plates of what looked like black
plastic, as if the owner had been shod rather than shoed). The blow had no effect on his captor.

ShouldтАЩve hung on to the flashlight, he railed at himself.

The creature did, however, respond to this show of physical resistance. The other arm flap swung around
and landed hard against the side of WalkerтАЩs head. It felt as if heтАЩd been hit with a fifty-pound sack of
wet oatmeal. A literal sucker punch, it dropped him immediately. Dazed and stunned, he sensed himself
being picked up and carried.

The other pair of aliens, including the one he had initially strobed, were waiting by the side of their craft.
It was not all that big, Walker reflected through the dull, pounding haze that had fogged his mind. No
bigger than an eighteen-wheeler. On the way in, the individual into whose longwise eyes Walker had
aimed his flashlight reached out to whack him solidly on the back of his skull, setting his head ringing.
So much for the theoretical ethical superiority of star-spanning alien civilizations, he thought weakly.

Then he passed out.




When he regained consciousness, the first thing Walker saw was his tent sitting where he had set it up,
on a slight rise beside the lake. He was lying on the gravel scree between tent and water. It was
midmorning; the mountain air cool and fresh, the pollution-free alpine glow casting every gray boulder
and contemplative cloud in sharp relief. The air smelled of pine, spruce, and water clear and clean
enough to bottle. In a dark, stunted tree, a raucous StellerтАЩs jay was arguing over a nut with a single-
minded chipmunk. The rush of white water was a siren call in the distance, where the main feeder
stream entered the lake on its far side.

Recollecting aliens, he sat up fast.

It was not a good idea. The action should have been preceded by reasoned thought and a preliminary