"Monica Hughes - Devil On My Back" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hughes Monica)

He girded his toga tightly around his middle, just in ease. Paddle in hand he stepped aboard the
raft and fell hastily to his knees as it rocked wildly and threatened to spill him into the water. With his
added weight the raft was now awash, but at least it wasn't sinking. He reached back to untie the rope
from the bush and then quickly dug his rough paddle into the water, aiming at a spot he had marked out
on the river bank opposite, where a clump of white-barked trees grew.
He found to his despair that though he could keep the front of the raft pointing towards the trees
it was still being swept firmly downstream. He paddled harder and harder until his arms were trembling
and the sweat was pouring down his body. But it was hopeless. The best he could do was to hold a
position in the middle of the stream. His heart was thudding and his head felt as if it were being squeezed
by two giant hands.
He gasped and stopped paddling. At once the current took the raft as if it were a leaf. He pulled
himself back to his knees and tried to concentrate on steering the raft slowly towards the bank. In the end
he got the knack of it, but for each twenty meters or so downstream, he gained only a meter towards the
shore.
His island was out of sight by the time he finally left the grip of the current and reached the
shallows. He looked quickly about, saw a broad shallow beach, where the river bank had been undercut
and broken down, and paddled straight for it.
The last rays of the sun were touching the hill above him when he abandoned his raft and crawled
thankfully onto dry land. He fell into the sweet grass and lay there with his face buried, listening to the
rasping of his breath and the thud of blood in his ears. He rolled over onto his back as far as his bulky
paks would allow. The grass crushed beneath his weight, smelling of the sun. He took a deep thankful
breath and closed his eyes.
***
He woke, freezing cold, to the now familiar stars. He stood up to unhitch his toga from around his middle
and wrap it around him like a blanket. How strange the river looked, quite unearthly, as if he had been
transported in his sleep to another world. It shone with a cold radiance. On the river bank opposite, each
tree stood out dark and straight. It was beautiful and absolutely terrifying. Where was the unearthly white
light coming from that made it all as bright as day and yet changed everything into something else?
He turned his head to the left and cried out in shock. Over the hills above the left riverbank was
an enormous white circle, as hard-edged as if cut out of beryllium. It hung above him, close enough to
touch, only he would never dare. It seemed to be staring down at him, challenging his right to be there.
He felt the skin on his neck and naked head creep and tighten with fear.
Then the shining disc met a wisp of cloud and slid behind it. Tomi's sense of perspective was
restored. He was looking at the moon. The moon! He accessed it in his astropak.
Moon: Earth's satellite. Diameter 3,476 kilometers. Mean distance from Earth 384 thousand
kilometers. Orbital period 27.3 days. Mass... he cut off the unwanted information. It had nothing to say
to this incredible beauty.
He accessed literature and into his mind came the words:

'Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon.'

Other quotations crowded eagerly in, but Tomi liked the first one best. It felt good and he
repeated it in a whisper to the still night. His fear had gone, but he shivered and was suddenly aware that
he was standing in his underclothing with only a layer of fine synthetic between his skin and the chilly
breeze. He should look for a more sheltered place to spend the rest of the night.
He moved up the slope away from the river, his way lit by the brilliant moon. Walking seemed
simple at first, but after he had tripped over a fallen tree that he had thought was a shadow, and edged
carefully across a smooth carpet of grass striped with seemingly solid shadows, he gave up. There was a
little hollow that seemed to hold some of the day's warmth. It would have to do. He curled up and pulled