"Joseph Green - The Horde" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Joseph)

shouts and cries of the captive's pursuing comrades, muffled by the thick
and smoky mist. They would be here within two minutes. Their scoutship
might be overhead even sooner, though it was unlikely they had
instruments capable of penetrating this soupy air.

Leo's steady right hand held his two-charge laser pistol focused on the
carnivore's chest. The noisy explosive projectile gun was in his left. The
laser would stop the killer beast, and do so silently. But that would leave
him only one charge in his most powerful weapon, and this seething inferno
was filled with similar huntersтАФmany, like this one, apparently going mad.

A little to Leo's left was a gurgling, belching mudhole, its popping
bubbles filling the air with the nauseous smell of sulfur. Behind him, the
mists thickened until they provided excellent cover. But that area was full of
similar mudholes, some of them neither noisy nor smelly. One slip, a single
fall, could mean death. Unpredictable rockslides from mountains colliding
just beyond the mists were another continual danger. The only safe ground
was the wood on whose edge he hid, and it was jammed to overflowing
with wild animals. They had been forced here by the massively slow but
inexorable grinding of deeply hidden tectonic plates, the force separating
this heavily forested peninsula from the mainland.

The thought flitted through Leo's mind that he should fire, just to save an
intelligent humanoid from the jaws of a wild beast. That one he dismissed
immediately. The screaming captive was a member of the Horde, human
only by definition and appearance. He was as dissimilar to Leo as the
horned carnivore that wanted to make a meal of the alien's pink flesh.

If Leo tried to slip to one side and away, the pursuing Horde members
were likely to see himтАФand even one glimpse could be fatal. They had
sonic rifles that produced a spreading cone of sound still fatal at sixty
metersтАФwhere the diameter was a good three meters wide. There was no
hiding from such a weapon. And Leo, above all, had to remain alive. Misty
was already in their hands. Somehow, someway, he had to live, to rescue
his partner and get back to their own small scout and out of this star system.

A flash of inspiration hit Leo, a vague glimpse of an answerтАФand he
pressed the firing stud.

The blue beam crackled through the air, slicing into the animal's hairy
chest and burning deep inside its massive body. The carnivore collapsed
between one step and the next, dying on its feet. The huge mouth opened in
an agonized reflex, and the pink captive went hurtling over the curling
horns and slammed into the ground. The shrill screaming ceased abruptly.

Leo left his shelter at a run, holstering both guns and drawing his bush
knife. He slid to his knees by the sexless humanoid, which had landed on its
back. Leo raised his knife for the quick hard slash across the throat that
would ensure silenceтАФand two large green eyes opened and blurrily
focused on his face.