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

"No, hardly any life at all, actually. The only animal of any size I confronted," he went on with a slight grin, "took one look at me and ran off like a spooked Bantha." He turned, moved to enter the cockpit. "Let's get started while it's still light. I'll give you a hand making up a pack."

Carefully he lowered himself in next to her. As he unlatched her seat he became conscious of the confined space they were working in. Awkwardly pressed up against him, the Princess seemed to take no notice of their proximity. In the dampness, though, her body heat was near palpable to Luke and he had to force himself to keep his attention on what he was doing.

Raising herself from the cockpit, the Princess stood on the nose of the fighter and reached down to him. "Hand it up, Luke."

He lifted the burgeoning pack. "Too heavy?" he asked as he handed it to her. She slid it onto her back, slipped both arms through the straps and adjusted the weight before tightening them.

"The burden of public office was a lot heavier," she shot back. "Let's get moving."

Briskly scrambling over the side, she let herself drop to the ground, planted her feet, took two steps in the direction of the distant beaconЕ and began to sink.

"LukeЕ ThreepioЕ"

"Take it easy, Princess." Edging carefully over the same side, he walked out on the intact wing facing her.

"Luke!" Already she was up to her knees in gray muck. If anything, she was beginning to sink faster.

Trying to anchor himself with his left hand, Luke reached out with his right from the wing edge. "Lean toward me. Artoo, you lock onto the ship. Threepio, give me your hand."

She did as she was told, the motion generating squelching sounds from the bog. Her hand flailed for him, smacking the soft ground many centimeters from his.

Rising, he scrambled back to the cockpit and retrieved his walking stick, then returned hurriedly to his prone position on the wing and extended it. "Lean toward me," he urged her again. "Threepio, you and Artoo hold tight or I'll go in with her."

"Don't worry sir," Threepio assured him. Artoo added a whistle.

She was up to her waist now. On the first try she missed the pole. The second time her fingers locked around it, were joined by her other hand.

Luke wrapped both hands around his end of the stick and sat up on the wing, leaning back. His feet slid and scraped on the smooth metal. "Artoo, ThreepioЕ pull!"

Having secured a firm grip on her, the earth was reluctant to yield its prize. Every muscle in his body taut, Luke struggled to heave and to conjure the Force simultaneously. He tried to put all of his weight behind his arms, behind his desperate pull.

A tired sucking noise sounded, and the Princess lurched forward. Luke allowed his exhausted arms a brief respite and hyperventilated while he had the chance.

"You can play toy engine later," the Princess admonished him. "Pull now."

Momentary anger gave him enough energy to pull her the rest of the way clear. Reaching down, he gave her a hand up and then they were both sitting on the edge of the wing.

Covered from the ribs down in a packing of green-gray mud and pieces of what looked like dried straw, the Princess appeared decidedly unregal. She pushed futilely at the mud, which was drying rapidly to the consistency of thin concrete. She said nothing, and Luke knew anything he might venture would not be terribly well received.

"Come on," he suggested simply. Taking up his walking stick, he moved to the back side of the wing. Leaning over, he probed at the ground, which displayed no inclination to eat his stick. But still he kept one hand on the wing edge when he stepped off. His feet sank, but only half a centimeter into the spongy loam. Yet the earth here looked no different from the quickclay that had almost taken the Princess.

She dropped down easily beside him and soon they were traveling through intermittent patches of half-familiar vegetation. Branches and bushes blocked tired legs and occasional thorns tore hopefully at them, but Luke's assumption that the ground beneath the taller growths was the firmest held true with gratifying consistency. Even the weighty 'droids didn't sink into the muck.

From time to time as they hiked along, the Princess would dab or push disgustedly at her lower body, which was now solidly caked with the gook she'd slid into. She remained unusually quiet. Luke couldn't tell whether her silence was due to a desire to conserve her strength or embarrassment at her present situation. He tended to think the former. To his knowledge, being embarrassed was not something she was subject to.

Frequently they would pause, turn circles, and then match up pointer alignment on their tracoms to insure they were still marching toward the beacon site.

"Even if it is an automatic station," he remarked several days later, in an effort to cheer her, "somebody put it down here and so they have to maintain it. However infrequently. I saw some pretty big ruins near the place we set down. Perhaps natives are still living in them or they might be empty, but the beacon could be for the use of a xenoarcheological research post."