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

After an hour or more, they emerged into a clearing. Clear,
that is, except for waist-high grass that was thick leaved and
dense.

And wet. It swished and clung like strips of wet тАв

sheeting as they waded through. Beyond it, a mile or two
away, was the ocean. An ocean that wasn't blue or green, like the
waters Joe Simmons knew. It was a muddy brown, like the clay
of jungle deltas. And the whitecaps and the breakers on the rocky
beach were not white at all. They were almost blood red.

Tamarina moved ahead once more. Joe could scarcely see her
above the tall grass, except for the moving swath she made
through it. Finally, she waited for him, contemptuous
amusement in her eyes as he caught up with her once more.

"Where are we going?" he demanded. "What's the use of
wallowing through this stuff? I had enough of that in the Army.
We ought to go back to the edge of the forest and set up a shelter
to wait out this rain."

She glanced at the dense sky. "Worlds such as this are
common. I suspect we would die of old age, waiting for the rain
to stop."
 Her words smashed him again with the unreality of their
situation. "Worlds like this? You talk as if you visit different
worlds every week! Who are you?"

"There is not time to explain to you." Her voice now was not
quite so irritable. She seemed almost anxious to make up for
some of her earlier wrath. Joe sensed that their experience was
not unfamiliar to her. She was not frightened and not dismayed.
She had a goal in mind.

"I need a flat area," she said, "free of growth and as large as
possible. I think the beach by the water may be suitable. Let us
hurry, please."

She resumed her urgent march through the high, clinging
grass before Joe could ask why there was need of the beach. It
was more than the mile or two he had originally guessed. The
light was deceptive, and it was more like five miles before they
broke out of the grass, exhausted from fighting it.

Tamarina dropped to the cold sand of the brownish sea, her
body heaving with the efforts of the long exertion. After a long
time, when she had regained her breath, she stirred and rose "to
her elbows. She regarded Joe, who sat with his back against a
nearby rock, watching her. She smiled in a way he would never