"Brian Herbert - Dune - Nightime Shadows On Open Sand" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

something from his stillsuit and pressed it against the young man's throat, an absorbent cloth
that drank his blood as it spilled.

Was the desert man saving him? A bandage? A flash of hope rose in Josten's mind. Had it all been a
mistake? Was this gaunt native trying to make amends?

But Josten's blood pumped out too quickly and forcefully for any medical help. As his life faded,
he realized that the absorbent pack had never been meant as a wound dressing, but simply to
capture every droplet of blood for its moisture.тАж




┬╖┬╖┬╖┬╖┬╖


When Kiel came to within firing distance of the two Fremen youths, Garan looked back into the
moonlight. "I thought I heard something from the 'thopter."
"Probably Josten tripping on his own feet," the sidegunner said, not lowering his weapon.

The trapped Fremen staggered to a halt across a shallow pan of soft sand. They crouched and pulled
out small, clumsy-looking knives.

Kiel laughed out loud. "What do you mean to do with those? Pick your teeth?"

"I'll pick the teeth from your dead body," one of the boys shouted. "Got any old-fashioned gold
molars we can sell in Arrakeen?"

Garan chortled and looked at his companion. "This is going to be fun." Moving in lockstep, the
troopers marched into the flat sandy area.

As they closed to within five meters, the sand around them erupted. Human forms popped out of the
dust, covered with gritтАФtan human silhouettes, like animated corpses boiling up from a graveyard.

Garan let out a useless warning cry, and Kiel fired once with his lasgun, burning down one of the


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men. Then the dusty forms surged forward. Clustering around the pilot, they pressed in so close
that he couldn't bring his lasgun to bear. They attacked him like blood-lice on an open wound.

As they drove Garan to his knees, he cried out in the manner of an old woman. The Fremen
restrained him so that he could do little more than breathe and blink his eyes. And scream.

One of the white-clad "victims" hurried forward. The young man held out the small knife that Garan
and Kiel had snickered at just moments ago. The youth darted downward, jabbing with the tip of the
bladeтАФbut with precise control, as gentle as a kissтАФto gouge out both of Garan's eyes,
transforming his sockets into red Oedipal stains.