"Deathworld 3 - Harry Harrison V1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

As quickly as they had struck they vanished, out of sight in the ravine behind the shadowed rise, and, in the stunned silence that followed, the moans of the wounded were shockingly loud.

The light was almost gone from the sky now and the darkness added to the confusion. When the glow tubes sprang on, the camp became a pool of bloody murder set in the surrounding night. Order was restored only slightly when Bardovy, the expedition's commander, began bellowing instructions over the bullhorn. While the medics separated the dying from the dead, mortars were rushed out and set up. One of the sentries shouted a warning and the big battlelamp was turned on and revealed the dark mass of riders gathering again on the ridge.

"Mortars, fire!" the commander shouted with wild anger. "Hit them hard!"

His voice was drowned out as the first shells hit, round after round poured in until the dust and smoke boiled high and the explosions rolled like thunder.

They did not yet realize that the first charge had been only a feint and that the main attack was hitting them from the opposite side of the camp. Only when the beasts were in among them and they began to die did they know what had happened. Then it was too late.

"Qose the ports!" the duty pilot shouted from the safety of the spacer's control room high above, banging the airlock switches as he spoke. He could see the waves of attackers sweeping by, and he knew how lethargic was the low-geared motion of the ponderous outer doors. He kept pushing at the already closed switches.

In a wave of shrieking brute flesh, the attackers rolled over the charged fence. The leading ones died and were trampled down by the beasts behind, who climbed their bodies, thick claws biting deep to take hold. Some of the riders died as well, and they appeared to be as dispensable as their mounts, for the others kept on coming in endless waves. They overwhelmed the encampment, filled it, destroyed it.

"This is Second Officer Weiks," the pilot said, activating all the speakers in the ship. "Is there any officer aboard who ranks me?" He listened to the growing silence and, when he spoke again, his voice was choked and unclear.

"Sound off in rotation, officers and men, from the Engine Room north. Sparks, take it down."

Hesitantly, one by one, the voices checked in, while Weiks activated the hull scanners and looked at the milling fury below.

"Seventeen-that's all," the radio operator said with shocked unbelief, his hand over the microphone. He passed the list to the Second Officer, who looked at it bleakly, then slowly reached for the microphone.

"This is the bridge," he said. "I am taking command. Run the engines up to ready."

"Aren't we going to help them?" a voice broke in. "We can't just leave them out there."

"There is no one out there to leave," Weiks said slowly. "I've checked on all the screens and there is nothing visible down there except these attackers and their beasts. Even if there were, I doubt if there is anything we could do to help. It would be suicide to leave the ship. And we have only a bare skeleton flight crew aboard as it is."

The frame of the ship shivered as if to add punctuation to his words. "One of the screens is out-there goes another-they hit it with something. And they're fixing lines to the landing legs. I don't know if they can pull us over-and I don't want to find out. Secure to blast in sixty-five seconds."

"They'll burn in our jets, everything, everyone down there," the radio operator said, snapping' his harness tight.

"Our people won't feel it," the pilot said grimly, "and-let's see how many of the others we can get."


When the spacer rose, spouting fire, it left a smoking, humped circle
of death below it. But, as soon as the ground was cool enough, the waiting riders pressed in and trampled through the ash. More and more of them, appearing out of the darkness. There seemed no end to their teeming numbers.





2

"Pretty stupid to get hit by a sawbird," Brucco said, helping Jason dinAlt to pull the ripped metalcloth jacket off over his head.

"Pretty stupid to try and eat a peaceful meal on this planet!" Jason snapped back, his words muffled by the heavy cloth. He pulled the jacket free and winced as sharp pain cut into his side. "I was just trying to enjoy some soup, and the bowl got in the way when I had to fire."

"Only a superficial wound," Brucco said, looking at the red gash on Jason's side. "The saw bounced off the ribs without breaking them. Very lucky."