"Raymond Jones - Renegades of Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jones Raymond)

 "It's dangerous. But it's an easy death, I am told тАФif there is to
be death."

Joe shuddered involuntarily. All the Army experience he had
known seemed no good here. Tamarina knew they were lost, but
she knew how they were lost. That made the difference. Joe
started to ask her once again to explain their situation, but she
stirred.

"I must sleep," she said. "Do what you will, but remain near.
The beacon will alarm us when it is detected."

He was too astonished to question how or where she would
sleep. He sensed her moving away from the rock. She went a
little distance and smoothed the sand, hollowing it to fit her
body. Then she lay down. But she had done something else, too.
From another of the packets she removed a pair of objects. She
placed one just beyond her feet. The other, above her head. In a
moment a soft blue haze enveloped her, like a giant easter egg,
settling over her. Then the hazy light slowly disappeared.

And so did Tamarina.

How long he sat there watching the spot where she had last
been, Joe had no way of knowing. He knew it was useless to go
over and put his hand on the spot, but he did. He felt the cold,
moist sand, the depression she had scooped out to lie in.

He returned to his seat by the rock, feeling his way in the
darkness. Reality had fled. He was in- a black, wet womb where
time had stopped and identity had disappeared. The only
sensation was the incessant rain and the wash of the dismal sea
on the near shore.

He needed sleep. He slumped against the side of the rock,
sitting on the sand, the ram water puddling against him as it
flowed down the slope of the beach. He had slept in worse
conditions in jungles. Still, he fought against closing his eyes.
Charley wasn't hiding in the grass beyond the beach, it was true,
but when he was there he at least had a rough idea where he
was.
 HereтАФ

He knew he had dozed, but it couldn't have been for long. The
bluish haze was rising over the spot where he had last seenтАФor
dreamed he had seenтАФ the girl called Tamarina. And in a
moment she was there again, in the depression in the sand. She
was resting on one elbow, watching him.

"I couldn't leave you out there," she said. "Come here."