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

His assignment was to protect her. He wouldn't abuse that trust, no matter his own hopeless hopes. He would defend her against anything that leapt out of the darkness, crawled from the slime, dropped from the gnarled branches they walked under. He would do it out of respect and admiration and possibly out of the most powerful of emotions, unrequited love.

He would even defend her from himself, he determined tiredly. In five minutes he was fast asleepЕ

Any awkwardness was spared by the fact that he awakened first. Removing his arm from her shoulders, he nudged her gently once, twice. With the third nudge she sat straight up, eyes wide and staring with sudden wakefulness. She turned sharply to stare at him. Then the events of the past several days came flooding back to her and she relaxed a little.

"Sorry. I thought I was someplace else. I was a little frightened." She started to rummage through her survival pack, and Luke did the same with his. Threepio offered a cheery "Good morning."

While the cloud-masked sun rose somewhere behind them, warming the mists slightly, they shared a meager breakfast of emergency cube concentrates.

"Whoever created these," she grimaced in distaste, biting off a small piece of a pink square, "must have been part machine. They didn't program anything like taste or flavor into them."

Luke tried not to let the awful taste he was experiencing show. "Oh, I don't know. They're designed to keep you alive, not to taste good."

"Want another one?" She extended a blue square with the consistency of dead sponge. Luke eyed it, half-smiled queasily.

"NotЕ right away. I'm kind of full." She nodded knowingly, then smiled. He grinned back at her.

The long day never grew truly comfortable, but their suits and the thermal capes kept them warm enough. By late morning it had grown sufficiently hot for them to unhook the capes, fold the thin material into small rectangles, and put them up in suit pockets.

The rare breaks in the mist were never large enough to give them a view of the rising sun, though Threepio and Artoo assured them it was there. It attacked the mist persistently, raising the light level from mere dimness to a kind of enthusiastic twilight.

"We should be getting close to the beacon," she told them all around midday. Luke wondered how many hours they'd slept. Nights and days would be long on Circarpous/Mimban.

"We have to be prepared to find nothing, Princess. There might not be a beacon station,"

"I know," she admitted quietly. "We'll have to search, though. We can walk in an expanding spiral from the place I plotted, and hope."

A long wall of trees and lesser growth lay ahead. They plunged into it without hesitating, trading ease of passage for secure footing.

"Pardon me, sir."

Luke looked slightly ahead and to his right. Both robots had paused and See Threepio was leaning against something. "What is it, Threepio?"

"Your pardon, sir, but this isn't a tree I'm pressing against," the 'droid said, "it's metal. I thought the matter worthy enough to bring to your notice. There is a possibilityЕ" A loud beep cut him off and he glared down at Artoo. "Talk too much? What do you mean I talk too much, you factory second!"

"MetalЕ it is metal!" The Princess was standing alongside the robots, waiting for Luke to make his way through the brush.

"Artoo, see if you can clear some of this undergrowth away." The little 'droid activated a small cutting flame, used it to burn a path through the jungle. "It's a wallЕ it's got to be," Luke muttered as they walked parallel to the forest-scarred metal surface.

Sure enough, the metal finally ended, and they emerged from the trees onto a modestly cleared roadway. It led into a street paved with packed clay-earth. Buildings lined both sides of the glorified alley, marching resolutely into the swirling fogs. Warm yellow glows shone from lights hidden behind tightly sealed windows, illuminating and outlining raised metal sidewalks canopied against the mist and rain.

"Thank the Force," the Princess murmured.



* * *


"First," Luke began, "we find a place to get cleaned up. ThenЕ" He took a step forward. A hand caught his shoulder, held him back. He eyed Leia curiously. "What's the matter?"