"Frank Herbert - Dune 4 - God Emporer of Dune" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

place. II have not yet chosen. This morning, though-ahhh, this life! When my
eyes had learned to focus, I looked out at sunshine on trampled grass and I saw
vigorous people going about the sweet activities of their lives. Where... oh
where has all of that vigor gone?
-The Stolen Journals
THE THREE people running northward through moon shadows in the Forbidden Forest
were strung out along almost half a kilometer. The last runner in the line ran
less than a hundred meters ahead of the pursuing D-wolves. The animals could be
heard yelping and panting in their eagerness, the way they do when they have the
prey in sight.
With First Moon almost directly overhead, it was quite light in the forest and,
although these were the higher latitudes of Arrakis it was still warm from the
heat of a summer day. The nightly drift of air from the Last Desert of the
Sareer carried resin smells and the damp exhalations of the duff underfoot. Now
and again, a breeze from the Kynes Sea beyond the Sareer drifted across the
runners' tracks with hints of salt and fishes.
By a quirk of fate, the last runner was called Ulot, which in the Fremen tongue
means "Beloved Straggler." Ulot was short in stature and with a tendency to fat
which had placed an extra dieting burden on him in training for this venture.
Even when slimmed down for their desperate run, his face remained round, the
large brown eyes vulnerable in that suggestion of too much flesh.
To Ulot it was obvious that he could not run much farther. He panted and
wheezed. Occasionally, he staggered. But he did not call out to his companions.
He knew they could not help him. All of them had taken the same oath, knowing
they had no defenses except the old virtues and Fremen loyalties. This remained
true even though everything that once had been Fremen had now a museum qualityrote
recitals learned from Museum Fremen.
It was Fremen loyalty that kept Ulot silent in the full awareness of his doom. A
fine display of the ancient qualities, and rather pitiful when none of the
runners had any but book knowledge and the legends of the Oral History about the
virtues they aped.The D-wolves ran close behind Ulot, giant gray figures almost
manheight at the shoulders. They leaped and whined in their eagerness, heads
lifted, eyes focused on the moon betrayed figure of their quarry.
A root caught Ulot's left foot and he almost fell. This gave him renewed energy.
He put on a burst of speed, gaining perhaps a wolf length on his pursuers. His
arms pumped. He breathed noisily through his open mouth.
The D-wolves did not change pace. They were silver shadows which went flickflick
through the loud green smells of their forest. They knew they had won. It
was a familiar experience.
Again, Ulot stumbled. He caught his balance against a sapling and continued his
panting flight, gasping, his legs trembling in rebellion against these demands.
No energy remained for another burst of speed.
One of the D-wolves, a large female, moved out on Ulot's left flank. She swerved
inward and leaped across his path. Giant fangs ripped Ulot's shoulder and
staggered him but he did not fall. The pungency of blood was added to the forest
smells. A smaller male caught his right hip and at last Ulot fell, screaming.
The pack pounced and his screams were cut off in abrupt finality.
Not stopping to feed, the D-wolves again took up the chase. Their noses probed
the forest floor and the vagrant eddies in the air, scenting the warm tracery of
two more running humans.