"Foster, Alan Dean - Star Wars - Splinter Of The Mind's Eye" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

She froze, barely retaining enough sensation to bring the crawler to a halt.
"I knew that quake wasn't the right word," Luke stated.
The firm, winding path they were traveling had risen abruptly in front of them, turned back on itself, and was now staring at them quizzically.
"Force preserve us!" Halla yelped, even as she spun the crawler on its central global wheel and sent them racing at high speed back the way they'd come.
The ground continued to turn and come after them. Pale cream in color, with streaks of brown, the colossus possessed nothing resembling a normal eye. Instead, the blunt end which was curling back toward them boasted a score of haphazardly spaced, dull, black spots like the eyes of a spider.
A ragged tear below the black orbs was the only other recognizable feature. It split now, revealing jet-black teeth set in concentric circles lining an endless gullet.
Both Yuzzem were chattering madly and firing at the great hulk, with as little accuracy as effect. The Yuzzem's rifles left thin black streaks on the anemic-looking flesh, but didn't penetrate deeply enough to cause any real destruction. Luke had his own pistol out and working, as did the Princess. Their bolts glanced harmlessly off back or sides, or the bottom body plates. Threepio and Artoo hung on desperately.
"Wandrella!" Halla was yelling. "It's a wandrella! We're finished."
The great blunt head was still winding ponderously back toward them. They were traveling on firm ground now and not on the monster's back. But the swamp crawler was built for sturdiness and stability, not speed. Branches and whole trees snapped off as the probing head curled after them, followed by the great white train of the wandrella's gargantuan body. Thick sucking sounds issued from beneath the huge body plates as the creature humped along after them. It traveled slowly, but each time it moved it covered meters. And it moved in an inexorable straight line, whereas the crawler had to dodge trees and pools of bottomless ooze. It drew so close that Luke and the others gathered desperately in the front of the crawler. "Aim for the eye-spots!" he ordered. Everyone took his advice, and this time their shots seemed more effective. Several bolts struck a couple of the black circles, searing them badly. A dull rumble boiled up out of the creature's depths, a lingering, moaning thunder. It was part confusion, part barely realized pain.
By now it was clear that the wandrella's nervous system was either too primitive to be instantly neutralized by energy fire, or too evenly distributed throughout its mass and thus devoid of any vital center.
Ten meters of its front end lifted up, dropped like a great white tree falling in slow motion. Halla tried to dodge, and the crawler struck a thick, rotting stump. The first wheel climbed over with a jolt, sending them tumbling to the floor of the crawler cab, but the second did not. They were hung, the stump pinning them between first and second axle, as that nightmare torso plunged down at them.
Opening wide, the black maw bit and clamped tight around the rear of the crawler. Its grip was devastatingly firm for so rubbery-looking a creature. No one had to give the order to abandon the vehicle. That was understood instantaneously.
Kee was last off, lingering for a final shot down the partly opened throat. He barely leapt clear as the crawler rose into the air. Only his extra-long arms enabled him to retreat safely.
Then they were sprinting for a hiding place, but there weren't any. No mountains to climb, no caves in hillsides here, and they had to be cautious or seemingly solid ground would devour them as efficiently as the worm behind them.
Crumpling noises reached them. Looking back over a shoulder as they ran, Luke saw the wandrella chewing the swamp crawler as if it were some choice morsel plucked from a tree. The analogy was not lost on him. If any of them tried climbing a tree for protection, the same fate would befall them as the unlucky crawler.
Their only chance was to find some kind of hiding place, secrete themselves out of sight, and pray that the hulking threat's sense of smell did not match its size.
Possibly the creature belonged to so primitive a species that it would regard prey as out of sight, out of mind. If it could no longer see them, hopefully the dull-witted monstrosity would interpret that to mean they no longer existed.
"This way!" Luke abruptly decided, turning and running to his left. Leia followed. Slightly ahead and sandwiched between the two Yuzzem, Halla didn't hear him. She and the two big aliens continued on the way they were headed.
Several minutes passed before a tired Halla slowed and did think to glance behind her. When she did, she saw only the phosphorescent convoy of white worm sliding through the mist well behind them.
She came to a stop, admonishing the two Yuzzem to do likewise. "It's gone off in a different direction," she exclaimed. Hin, panting like an engine, nodded affirmation. The trio squinted into the fog around them.
"Luke boy, child," she called, "you can come out now. It's given up on us." Mist-sounds and peeps from the underbrush responded blankly. "Come on, Luke boy," she added, beginning to feel a little nervous, "don't be fooling old Halla like this."
Trying to help, Kee let out a stentorian bellow. Halla had to jump to clap a hand over his mouth, then put her own hand over her own mouth and shook her head, pointing to the last bit of wandrella disappearing into the growth not far enough away. Kee nodded realization, called again more softly through his snoot for their missing companions. Artoo was whistling mournfully.
"Luke," Halla called again, worried. Together, the three began searching the surrounding brush. When several minutes of this failed to turn up any sign of the Princess or Luke, Halla gathered up the two Yuzzem and glanced back the way they'd come.
"I don't think it got them... not yet, anyhow. They were right behind us." She turned, and they started to retrace their steps in the hope that Luke and Leia had somehow managed to elude the beast.
"They may be hiding under a tree somewhere," ventured Threepio hopefully.
Neither assumption was correct. Luke and the Princess hadn't been devoured, but neither had they lost their lumpish pursuer. As they had deserted the crawler, the wandrella noted the movement unemotionally. Once the mangled swamp vehicle proved itself unappetizing, the leviathan had turned after smaller, and, it was hoped, more nutritious prey.
But mysteriously, its food had split into two parts. In primitive wandrella reasoning, the nearer was the tastier. Ignoring Halla and the others, it swerved to follow Luke and Leia.
"It's still behind us," Luke told her, breathing with difficulty. A massive circle lined with black dots was humping through bog and brush after them. Leia stumbled over a gnarled root and Luke fought to help her up.
"I... don't know how much longer I can... keep this up, Luke."
"Neither do I," he confessed tiredly, his frantic gaze hunting for someplace, anyplace, to conceal themselves.
"What about a tree?"
"Already thought of that," he informed her, as they stumbled on. "That thing could pull us out of the biggest tree here, or push it down."
"It's getting closer," she exclaimed, with a backward glance. Her voice was starting to crack.
Luke squinted, saw what appeared to be a regular line of rocks. "Over there," he urged.
They staggered up to what turned out to be, not a natural formation, but an artificial construct. Each stone was shaped in a hexagonal pattern and fitted to its neighbors without any visible cement or putty. A peculiar tripod of wood and plaited vines decorated with paint or dyes was arranged above the circular wall.
"Looks like some kind of ceremonial cistern," the Princess decided as they stumbled the last few meters toward it. "Maybe it holds water for a dry season." She looked back. The merciless pale horror continued remorselessly toward them.
Luke started to put a foot over the wall, got a glimpse beyond it at the same time and recoiled in terror. The stone wall surrounded a pit a good nine or ten meters in circumference. Though the sunlight here was far from bright, filtered as it was through mist and rain, it was sufficient to indicate that the empty gulf yawning beneath him was of frightening depth.
The Princess got a look at it too, sucked in her breath. "Luke, we can't..." But he was running around the edge of the abyss, calling to her.
"Over here, Leia!" She hurried around the side, came up to him.
"Luke, we can't stay..." He shook his head, pointed to something inside the wall. Leaning over, she saw the cause of his excitement.
They were standing at a place where the wall had been cut away. A gateway covered with indecipherable alien scrawl framed the stoneless section. Attached to small stone pillars were two vines. They descended into the darkness, intertwining to form a strange spiral ladder.
"Luke, I don't know..." she began.
He dropped to the ground, grabbed one of the vines and tugged on it with all his strength. The vine didn't give. Behind them, the wandrella had approached to within fifteen meters. It opened its toothy maw. A low, lymph-curdling ululation issued from within.
That made up Luke's mind. "We haven't got a choice," he insisted.
"Down there, Luke?" The Princess shook her head. "We can't. We don't know what..."
"I'd rather die in a dark hole," he said tightly, staring hard at her, "than be some monster's breakfast." Then he started down the vine ladder. "Come on," he urged her, yelling upward. "It'll hold both of us!" He continued his descent.
A last look at the quivering mouth hunching toward her and the Princess swung both legs over the side of the pit and started down into nothingness. It was not quite black as night, but dark enough so that Luke had to feel for each succeeding rung. Once he moved too quickly and almost fell. With his right leg he felt around for the next rung.
There was no next rung.
He'd reached the bottom of the ladder.
"Hold it!" he shouted softly up to Leia. The slight echo of the pit gave his voice a sepulchral quality. Above, he could barely make out her frightened face as she turned to look down at him.