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

the long grass down over him.
***
The next morning was also grey, with mist lying over everything like a tatter of grey fabric and
drops of water on every seedhead and blade of grass. Before he had walked more than a few meters his
legs and the bottom of his already damp toga were soaked. Then it began to rain, softly.
He soon found that he could not follow the shore itself. The bank was littered with dead wood
and in places had broken away and fallen into the river. Further inland the ground sloped gently up to his
right, eventually steepening into a tree-covered mountain. The lower grassy slopes made for comfortable
walking. He set out in a grey drizzle.
By noon the sky had cleared and the sun was sucking moisture up out of the ground. He reached
the slope above his island. How tiny and barren it looked from up here. It gave him a pang of dismay to
realize what a long way he must still have to go. At this rate it would take days to reach ArcOne. He
would get weaker and weaker and die of starvation... He sat down on the warm damp grass to rest and
think about it.
In the last stretch of his nightmare journey downstream on the log, he seemed to remember that
the river had made a wide curve westward and then a swoop back to the east. Surely that must be the
bump in the landscape just ahead of him? If he were to cut due north over this hill he would save hours of
time. He couldn't possibly get lost because the river would still be there on his left beyond the hill.
He took off his sandals. His feet smarted painfully and on both heels the skin was red and puffed
up in watery blisters. He cooled them in the damp grass and couldn't bear the thought of putting his
sandals on again. He knotted them around his neck and struggled to his feet with a groan.
Before long he was completely out of sight of the river. Dead ahead, beyond the gentle rise of
green, he could see a broad escarpment between two high mountains. It lay roughly north, and on this
feature he kept his eyes.
He walked doggedly on. The sun was on his left now, sinking rapidly towards the hills that lay
beyond the river. Before long he would have to stop and find a place to sleep again. He ran his tongue
over his cracked lips and stood still in dismay. Fool! He had no water, not a single drop. Over to his left
liters and liters of it poured down. It was too cruel. The hunger pains were bad enough, but how long
would he have to endure thirst before he came on the river again?
"I'll go on walking," he said grimly. "Once the moon is up I'll be able to see. I'll walk until I'm over
the hill and down in the valley again. Then I'll drink and drink..." He ran his thick tongue over his cracked
lips and plodded on.
He had to rest for a while, but when the moon rose he went on. He could no longer see the
escarpment between the two mountains that had been his guide to the north, but he kept as straight a
course as he could, and Ursa Minor, low in the north, kept him on track.
He walked on, no longer feeling the pain in his feet or his empty belly, nor the stiffness in his legs
or back. The moon cast a silver trail up the hillside and Tomi followed it as if he were sleepwalking.
Suddenly, with a heart-stopping thud, he fell forward onto his fat stomach with a crash that
knocked the wind out of him. He tried to pull his knees up to his chest, wheezing, struggling to catch his
breath, but something was holding his left foot. He fell on his side and gagged and retched. His empty
stomach hurt abominably. He groaned and clutched at the grass.
When he had recovered he sat up and struggled to free his foot. He found a snare of finely
plaited grass so tightly caught around his ankle that the flesh had puffed up and it took both hands to ease
the noose off his foot. He could see that it had been a trap. There were the two twigs that held the noose
upright. There was the forked stick that held the other end securely to the ground.
A snare meant edible meat. He thought of replacing it and lurking close by in case something ran
into it as he had. But the problems of a fire to cook with and a knife to skin and dismember his catch
made it all quite impractical. Anyway he had probably frightened away anything within kilometers with the
noise he had made.
He got painfully to his feet. The last handful of berries seemed to have been digested weeks and