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

"Can we тАж catch one?" Josten asked.

Kiel stopped himself from making a rude rejoinder, realizing that the young recruit did have a
good idea. "Come on!" He charged forward into the churned sand.

The worm sensed the movement and reared back, uncertain whether to attack or flee. Then it arced
like a sea serpent and plunged into the sand, wriggling and burrowing.

Josten sprinted ahead and dove face-first to grasp the segmented body three quarters of the way to
its end. "It's so strong!" Following him, the sidegunner jumped down and grabbed the thrashing
tail.

The worm tried to tug away, but Garan reached the front, where he dug into the sand and grabbed
behind its head with a stranglehold. All three troopers wrestled and pulled. "Get it!" The small
worm thrashed like an eel on an electric plate.

Other sandworms on the far side of the pit rose like a strange forest of periscopes sprouting from
the sea of dunes, round mouths like black os turned toward the men. For an icy moment, Kiel feared
they might attack like a swarm of marrow leeches, but the immature worms darted away and
disappeared underground.

Garan and Kiel hauled their captive out of the sand and dragged it toward the ornithopter. As a
Harkonnen patrol, they had all the equipment necessary to arrest criminals, including old-
fashioned devices for trussing a captive like a herd animal. "Josten, go get the binding cords in
our apprehension kit," the pilot said.

The new recruit came running back with the cords, fashioning a loop which he slipped over the
worm's head and cinched tight. Garan released his hold on the rubbery skin and grabbed the rope,
tugging while Josten slipped a second cord lower on the body.

"What are we going to do with it?" Josten asked.

Once, early in his assignment on Arrakis, Kiel had joined Rabban on an abortive worm hunt. They
had taken a Fremen guide, well-armed troops, even a Planetologist. Using the Fremen guide as bait,


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they had lured one of the enormous sandworms and killed it with explosives. But before Rabban
could take his trophy, the beast had dissolved, sloughing into amoeba creatures that fell to the
sand, leaving nothing but a cartilaginous skeleton and loose crystal teeth. Rabban had been
furious.

Kiel's stomach knotted. The Baron's nephew might consider it an insult that three simple patrolmen
could capture a worm, when he'd been unable to do so himself. "We'd better drown it."

"Drown it?" Josten said. "What for? And why would I want to waste my water ration to do that?"