"Edmond Hamilton - Captain Future 23 - The Harpers of Titan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Edmond)

back and forth across the clearing.
Otho watched him, sitting still, his
slim body bent like a steel bow. Grag
remained where he was, a dark
immobile giant in the shadows,
dwarfing even Newton's height.
Then, abruptly, there was a sound
different from all other sounds. Simon
heard, and listened, and after a
moment he said:
"There are two men, climbing the
slope from the valley, coming this
way."
Otho sprang up. Curt voiced a
short, sharp "Ah!" and said, "Better
take cover, until we're sure."
The four melted into the darkness.
Simon was so close to the strangers
that he might have reached out one of
his force-beams and touched them.
They came into the clearing, breathing
heavily from the long climb, looking
eagerly about. One was a tall man,
very tall, with a gaunt width of
shoulder and a fine head. The other
was shorter, broader, moving with a
bearlike gait. Both were Earthmen,
with the unmistakable stamp of the
frontiers on them, and the hardness of
physical labor. Both men were armed.
They stopped. The hope went out of
them, and the tall man said
despairingly,
"They failed us. They didn't come.
Dan, they didn't come!"
Almost, the tall man wept.
"I guess your message didn't get
through," the other man said. His
voice, too, was leaden. "I don't know,
Keogh. I don't know what we'll do
now. I guess we might as well go
back."
Curt Newton spoke out of the
darkness. "Hold on a minute. It's all
right."
URT moved out into the open
space, his lean face and red hair
clear in the moonlight.
"It's he," said the stocky man. "It's
Captain Future." His voice was shaken