"Foster, Alan Dean - Cat-a-lyst" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

By evening they found themselves bouncing over hills and ruts, across
fast-running streams, through mud that would have swallowed the car of a driver less knowledgeable and skilled than Igor. Trees hung over the narrow road, blotting out what sunlight the pouring rain did not already obscure and making Carter feel as if they were driving down a dark green tunnel.
It was pitch-black out when, exhausted and filthy, they finally reached the tiny Indian community of Pilcopata. Even children and chickens had taken shelter from the steady downpour. Ghostly figures darted past the land cruiser's headlights.
Igor vanished into the storm, reappeared moments later. The fact that he was drenched to the skin did not seem to bother him. "There is an old tea plantation across the river. They keep a few beds available for the scientists and naturalists who come this way." "We're gonna cross a river in this?" Carter could see Marjorie Ashwood's lust for Inca treasure beginning to fade. "What about the car?" "It stays here. From this point on we go by boat or on foot. You are welcome to sleep here if you prefer the backseat of the car to a dry bed with clean linen."
Mumbling under her breath, Ashwood climbed out into the rain. Carter carefully eased the sleeping Macha into his waterproof backpack and hefted it high on his broad shoulders. Together they followed their guide's flashlight through the darkness.
By morning the rain had stopped. The plantation's owner hosted a surprisingly luxurious breakfast. Exotic cries from the surrounding jungle punctuated their conversation as they ate, the raucous concert dominated by the oleaginous warble of the oropendula birds.
so Alan Dean Foster
They were on the river by eight o'clock, speeding over clear shallows in the largest dugout canoe Carter had ever seen. Set on a ridiculously long shaft, the prop of the old Evinrude engine powered them smoothly downstream. There were no seats. Ashwood and Carter made themselves as comfortable as they could atop the piles of supplies.
Igor's chief boatman, Pierre, had appeared magically at daybreak, ac-
companied by a stocky mestizo porter named Christopher. Apparently Hispanic names were less than universally popular in this part of the world.
The following day Igor directed his men to pull inshore. A short hike brought them face-to-face with a large rock outcropping which was covered with drawings. "Ancient petroglyphs," Igor explained. Ashwood glanced around, saw
that they were alone. "Where are your people?" "They won't come here," their guide explained. "Pusharo is a sacred place to them. Come and see."
He led them around the side of the site. Beneath a protective granite overhang the rock wall was completely covered with bizarre drawings and carvings. Many had an incomplete look to them, as if the artist had given up in exhaustion or despair and moved on to another section of stone to try and realize his intention anew. Those that did look finished resembled nothing Car-ter or Ashwood had ever seen. They said as much.
Igor smiled. "Do not let it discourage you. Nobody knew there were
any such ancient drawings down in the jungle until Padre Vincente Cenitagoya found these in 1921. There has yet to be any systematic scientific study made of them. Nothing is known of their origins or makers and they resemble nothing the Incas did. You are free to interpret what you see however you think fit." He studied the wall. "Myself, they speak to me of mystery and ancient days." He touched smooth gray stone. "This here is clearly a human face, but this object next to it utterly confuses me. Many of the shapes are unrecognizable." He moved to his left. "I call this one 'sun-in-a-box.' It is fun to make up interpretations for them."
There were hundreds of drawings, seemingly scattered at random across the outcropping. The visitors were turning to leave when Ashwood suddenly stopped and pointed. "Wait a minute! There's one I recognize."
Their guide's eyebrows lifted. "You recognize it?" "Yes. I have a drawing of it. I'm sure I do." Igor considered. "If that is so," he said slowly, "then perhaps we may stumble across something of interest to you after all." A yowl drew their
Cat - a - Lyst 51
attention away from the petroglyphs. Carter looked anxiously in the direction of the river. "The people who live in this country do not eat cats," Igor hastened to reassure him as they started back the way they'd come.
They spent the night in tents on the shore, heading up another, smaller river the next morning. While Carter was having a marvelous time, Ashwood was somewhat less than enthused. At least when they were out in the river, he pointed out to her, the bugs didn't harry them. She was not mollified.
Igor consulted frequently with her on directions, once angling the dugout to scoot up a tributary whose existence Carter had not even sus-
pected, so dense was the vegetation crowded along the bank. They would keep to the water for as long as possible.
It was the height of the dry season, Igor informed them. Most of the year the terrain they were currently traversing was impassable: the land impossibly boggy and muddy, the rivers wild with froth and huge trees whose root systems had been washed away by the floods.
They supplemented their supplies with fresh catfish and piranha, the white meat of the latter reticulate with small bones and tasting vaguely of trout. When Igor and his men jumped eagerly into the river at precisely five-fifteen every evening (when the day mosquitoes clocked out) and splashed around delightedly for ten minutes to emerge before five-thirty (when the night mosquitoes clocked in) Carter was at first reluctant to follow their example despite the temptation of a cool bath. Accumulated sweat and grime finally induced him and his companion to take the plunge. As Igor had promised, the piranhas did not bite. But their curious nibbling kept him from relaxing as he stood in the shallows and soaped himself off.
Days later when the stream had grown too narrow to navigate they beached the dugout and hefted packs. In the thick heat and cloying humidity Carter was sure that his weighed only slightly less than his thirty-six-inch T.V. back home. Macha had miraculously acquired the dimensions and mass of the jaguar they'd heard briefly the previous night. But he said nothing, nor did Ashwood. Pierre bid them goodbye. He would remain behind with the boats, awaiting their return.
By the end of the first hour Carter found himself envying the boatman. As for himself, he could think of nothing but the hotel back in Cuzco: of air-conditioning and cubed ice, of the refreshing high-pressure shower and lemon-scented bed linen. He had long since stopped slapping at the voracious insects which worried his exposed skin, relying on the dense gelatinous layer of insecticide he slathered on every morning to protect him. This it did with greatly varying degrees of efficacy. Those insects
52 Alan Dean Foster
that somehow managed to bite him right through his denim jeans he could only ignore.
Igor had spoken of diseases endemic to the Infierno Verde which not only had no known cure, they had yet to be named. Carter tried very hard not to think of such things.
Instead he concentrated on the green conflagration through which they stumbled- Igor's and Christopher's machetes rose and fell in rhythm, excavating a path where none existed.
By late afternoon his legs were throbbing, his feet aching. When Igor announced that it was time to take a break Carter started toward a circular clearing from which rose a single small tree, intending to use it as a backrest. The guide practically tackled him from behind. "Stay away from that." "Why?" Carter scanned the ground. "There're no bugs here, no rocks. " "Precisely." Igor gestured at the tree. "That's a palo santo."
The six-inch-thick bole looked innocuous enough to Carter, and he said so. "Look at the ground again," Igor advised him. "See how clean it is? Not only are there no insects here, there is very little leaf litter and no
young plants. Nothing living."
Despite the heat Carter felt a chill. "So?" The guide had him approach the tree . . . carefully. "See these ve-
nous lines running across the bark? They are ant tunnels. The tree provides them for the ants, who make their homes within. In return, the ants cut down any competing plants that try to take root near their home, and kill any creatures which come too close. See?"
He tapped lightly on the trunk with the butt of his machete. Within seconds the gray bark was swarming with angry quarter-inch-long, rustred ants that came pouring out of holes in the vein-like tunnels. "They don't look like much," was Ashwood's comment. "Not as threatening as the army ants you've showed us or those huge black solitary hunters."
Carter let out a scream and jumped several inches off the ground, clutching at his left wrist. On the back of his hand a single ant had pierced the skin with its stinger. It was wiggling and twisting like a living drill, trying to drive the tiny weapon ever deeper into the invader. Several slaps were required to dislodge it. Instantly a small red circle began to form around the minuscule hole.
De Soto examined the skin, his expression as phlegmatic as ever. "It must have fallen off a branch." Carter immediately looked upward and began backing away.
Cat - a - Lyst S3
"I got stung by a yellow jacket once," the actor muttered. "This is worse. How can such a tiny little creature hurt so bad?" "Their poison is very strong," Igor explained. "The Machiguenga Indians who live in this region will punish a severe offender by tying him face-first to one of these trees. When they return the following morning the victim is always dead." "I think I'll go sit in a nice mud puddle somewhere," Ashwood declared with alacrity. They left the sunny, bug-free clearing to its owners.
After another day of oppressive heat, choking humidity, stinging plants, and maddeningly persistent biting insects Igor matter-of-factly announced that from that point on, progress was likely to become difficult. "I know that in this day and age it's hard to believe, but we really are
entering unexplored territory. Only true fools leave the rivers to travel this country on foot." He smiled. "I greet my fellow fools." Turning, he gestured toward the jungle ahead. "Nobody in their right mind comes
here for a hike. Too steep and slippery. Maybe we'll see something interesting. New species are being discovered in this country all the time." "What about Indians?" Carter asked as they resumed their advance. "There are still tribes in the Mand district who've had only the most marginal contact with civilization, people whose languages are not understood. I do ' not think we are likely to encounter a previously un-
touched tribe, but it is possible."
When it wasn't raining they could see through breaks in the trees. They were climbing a green wall, ascending by means of switchbacks and angles, only to descend the opposite side, wade a creek, and start the process all over again. It was painfully slow and miserably uncomfortable. The blue sky overhead seemed an abstract unattainable ideal, pure and unsullied by drifting spores and bugs.
Carter could see why no one would want to visit such a place: not prospectors, not poachers, no one. It was ruggedly inaccessible. Even if you found anything worthwhile it would be hell packing it out.
Two days later they encountered the Indian. He did not fit the image Carter had constructed during idle moments of speculation.
Certainly he was old. His skin resembled a banana peel that had been left too long in the sun. Their appearance startled him erect and Carter estimated he was barely five feet tall. His attire consisted of a pair of fraying khaki shorts and an equally threadbare undershirt. A temporary structure of saplings and palm leaves stood behind him. Off to one side unidentifiable skinned animals and a couple of neatly filleted fish dangled from a horizontal limb supported by crossed poles set in the ground. They had been recently cut.
54 Alan Dean Foster
"Poacher?" Ashwood wondered aloud. "We'll see." Their guide stepped forward and addressed the old man in a peculiar singsong tongue. He responded haltingly, shaking his head. Igor tried again.