"David Gerrold - Starsiders 1 - Jumping of the Planet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gerrold David)

You let yourself go loose and then you just keep falling forward and let your feet lump down in front of
you. If only there wasn't that big hole thereтАФI slowed down automaticallyтАФ
"Come on, Chigger!" Weird said impatiently. He gangled past me.
I looked back. Dad was following after us, but he wasn't running, just walking fast.
And then Stinky slipped at the first switchback and skidded off the path, which would have been
warning enough to any rational person that running down the side of a hole big enough to have its own
area code was not a good ideaтАФbut Stinky didn't have good ideas. He picked himself up, shouted, "You're
a big doo-doo head, and you can't catch me," and headed toward the next switchback.
"Bobby! Stop it! If you slip, you'll roll all the way down. You could get killedтАФ!" But he didn't pay
any more attention to me than I paid to Dad. He just kept shouting and taunting.
I wondered if I could cut him off, but that would have meant taking the short-and-fast way down, and
I really didn't want to do that. So I slowed down for the turn, tried not to look, and kept after the little
bastard. Behind me, I could hear Dad shouting, "Go get him, Charles!" as if it was my fault he'd run down
here.
Eventually Weird caught up with Stinky, and so did I. Weird grabbed Stinky's arm and they skidded
along the path for a bit, and for a moment I thought they were going to lose it and just go on down the
side, but then their feet caught and they stopped. And then Weird started yelling at Stinky about how
dangerous it was to run down the side of a steep hill. "You almost slipped! What do you think you were
doing? You'd have rolled and bounced all the way down to the bottom. You'd have been killed!"
"Yeah!" I said. "And then we'd not only have to walk down to get you, we'd have to carry you back
up." Weird gave me his weird look. "Well, we would."
Stinky didn't say anything, he just did that nasty hate-stare that he's so good at, and we all stood
around for a minute not talking, just catching our breath, waiting for Dad to get to us. We hadn't gotten
very far down the side of the crater. Most of it was still below us, but we'd come a long way anyway, at
least half a klick, maybe more.
It wasn't until Dad showed up that Stinky started talking again. "I wasn't gonna fall it isn't fair I
wanna go to the bottom Dad make him let me go let go of me!" And then he did wriggle free and started
running down the path again. And Weird and I had to go after him again. With Dad walking behind. This
time Stinky was running away just to be nasty. "You can't catch me, neener, neener, neener!"
I was so angry, I started after himтАФwhich was exactly what he wanted. Only, I wasn't going to yell at
him like Weird. I was going to gut-punch him like he deserved. No matter what Dad said. Weird came
running after the both of us.
The path went back and forth down the side of the crater in a series of switchbacks. The first one
turned so sharply, it was hard to stop and turn back the other way. If you're going to fall, that's where it's
most likely to happen. And that's where he did slipтАФ
Stinky was shouting and looking back, not watching where he was going, and he stumbled over a
bump and bounced face forward and slid down the slopeтАФand for a moment, that queasy feeling in my
gut turned into a flash of black fear that he was going to slide all the way downтАФbut then he stopped
sliding in a patter of loose dirt and gravel and just hung there on the steep side of the crater wall, caught
on a tiny bush. "Don't move!" I screamed. "Don't move!" And I knew even as I said it, that he would do
exactly the opposite, because that was the kind of stupid little monster he was.
ExceptтАФhe didn't move. He was too scared to move. He was screaming as loud as he could. "Daaaa-
ddeeee!"
"Just hold on," I called. I was the closest. I looked back and Weird was just coming around the last
switchback. What I really wanted to say to Stinky was, "This is your own fault. We told you not to goтАФ"
But I was close enough to see how scared he was and as angry as I was at him, I was even more scared for
him. "Just don't move, I'm coming to get youтАФ" If only I could figure out how.
Stinky had slipped about five meters down the slope. It was mostly dirt, with only a few little things
pretending to be plants. He'd caught on a scraggly little bush that didn't look strong enough to hold him. It
was already bending precariously, and I was certain it was going to snap before I could get to him.