"Alan Dean Foster - With friends like these." - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

applied, or retracted, from an outside source. Now that it is down, we will not make the error of
allowing it to be put up again. Once again, gentlebeings, we are in your debt. Our agreement still
holds. If you will return to your ship we will... commence preparations to follow in ours." The
native smiled, and it was at once a lovely and terrible thing to see. (Among the known creatures
of the universe, only the Terran human bares its fangs to express friendship.)
"It has been so long," the Jones sighed wistfully, "since we have had a decent war!"
Back on the Tpin it was a thoughtful yet jubilant Rappan who confronted a very bedraggled
Communicator First.
"Commander," panted Phrnnx, "listen! You mustn't drop the Shield! This whole world... it's a sham,
sir! A fake. We've been fooled, and badly. These natives aren't as primitive as they'd like us to
think. I saw, sir! Machines, automatic factories, synthetic food-processing plantsтАФthe whole
planet, CommanderтАФit's filled with their machines! I fell into itтАФaccidentтАФthe machines down there
are programmed to answer questions... I asked..." He paused for breath, became aware then that no
one in the happy control cabin was paying any attention to him. Most of the crew were telling
jokes, patting each other contently on their back-equivalents, and preparing for a lift-off. Only
the Professor seemed unaffected by the otherwise universal giddiness. Phrnnx turned to the elder.
"Professor, I'm telling the truth! Tell them, make them listen, we've got to... I"
The Professor turned a spare eye on him. "Oh, I believe you. If those muftils could control their
glee long enough to listen to you, they'd no doubt believe you, too." He paused. "Have you looked
at the sky recently?"
Phrnnx ran to a port and stared wildly upward.
"The Shield's gone!"
The Professor favored his announcement with a first-degree nod, indicating positive
acknowledgment. "Indeed it is. Commander Rappan had left orders with Commander Second Alo to drop
it as a sign of good faith the moment the Terrans agreed to sign the mutual-defense-pact edicts


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with us." He looked thoughtfully at the port. "The Jones and his mate seemed to know exactly when
the generating machinery on the satellite cut off. Even the annuals were acting in a most peculiar
fashion as we returned to the ship." He shivered slightly.
"I, for one, shall be less unhappy than I first thought at the prospect of leaving this place."
"What makes you think that, now with the Shield off, they'll hold to their agreement to help us?"
"Two reasons, youngster. First of all, the Jones said that they would, and I have a hunch that
they are the kind of folk who put much store by their word. And also, I kind of think they could
have turned it off anytime they wanted to, after our initial penetration."
Phrnnx did not answer. He was watching the sky grow darker outside the port as the ship rose
beyond the atmosphere, watching the stars come out, remembering a picture... a little boy, two Yop
scouts, and a battleship. Then a little boy and a battleship. Then just a little boy. And the
machine that had soothed his traumas, deep under the crust of the planet.
"Sir," began Zinin to the commander, and his great voice was strangely muffled, "they're coming...
in their ship, like they said they would."
Phrnnx yanked himself back to realityтАФif such it still could be calledтАФand joined the others who
were now occupied at the fore port.
Below, great masses of puffy white clouds. Brown and green land masses, unchanged. Blue oceans,
unchanged.
Except one.
In the middle of the planet's second ocean, great, impossible masses of thick columnar crystals