"Damon Knight - Four In One" - читать интересную книгу автора (Knight Damon)

Four down. Six down. Three more together as the herd bunched between the last arm of the thicket and the steep river bank; then two that tried to double back; then four stragglers, one after the other.
The rest of the herd disappeared into the tall grass up the slope; but fifteen bodies were strewn behind them.
Taking no chances, George went back to the beginning of the line and edged the monster's body under the first carcass.
"Crouch down, Gumbs," he said. "We have to slide under it ... that's far enough. Leave the head hanging over."
"What for?" said the soldier.
"You don't want his brain in here with us, do you? We don't know how many this thing is equipped to take. It might even like this one better than one of ours. But I can't see it bothering to keep the rest of the nervous system, if we make sure not to eat the head--"
"Oh!" said Vivian faintly.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Bellis," George said contritely. "It shouldn't be too unpleasant, though, if we don't let it bother us. It isn't as if we had taste buds, or--"
"It's all right," she said. "Just please let's not talk about it."
"I should think not," Gumbs put in. "A little more tact, don't you think, Meister?"
Accepting this reproof, George turned his attention to the corpse that lay on the monster's glabrous surface, between his section and Gumbs's. It was sinking, just visibly, into the flesh. A cloud of opacity was spreading around it.
When it was almost gone, and the neck had been severed, they moved on to the next. This time, at George's suggestion, they took aboard two at once. Gradually their irritable mood faded; they began to feel at ease and cheerful, and George found it possible to think consecutively without having vital points slip out of his reach.
They were on their eighth and ninth courses, and George was happily engaged in an intricate chain of speculation as to the monster's circulatory system, when Miss McCarty broke a long silence to announce:
"I have now perfected a method by which we can return to camp safely. We will begin at once."

Startled and dismayed, George turned his eyes toward McCarty's quadrant of the monster, protruding from the rim was a stringy, jointed Something that looked like--yes, it was!--a grotesque but recognizable arm and hand. As he watched, the lumpy fingers fumbled with a blade of grass, tugged, uprooted it.
"Major Gumbs!" said McCarty. "It will be your task to locate the following articles, as quickly as possible. One. A surface suitable for writing. I suggest a large leaf, light in color, dry but not brittle. Or a tree from which a large section of bark can be easily peeled. Two. A pigment. No doubt you will be able to discover berries yielding suitable juice. If not, mud will do. Three. A twig or reed for use as a pen. When you have directed me to all these essential items, I will employ them to write a message outlining our predicament, we will read the result and point out any errors, which I will then correct. When the message is completed, we will return with it to the camp, approaching at night, and deposit it in a conspicuous place. We will retire until daybreak, and when the message has been read we will approach again. Begin, Major."
"Well, yes," said Gumbs, "that ought to work, except--I suppose you've worked out some system for holding the pen, Miss McCarty?"
"Fool," she replied, "I have made a hand, of course."
"Well, in that case, by all means. Let's see, I believe we might try this thicket first--" Their common body gave a lurch in that direction.
George held back. "Wait a minute," he said desperately. "Let's at least have the common sense to finish this meal before we go. There's no telling when we'll get another."
McCarty demanded, "How large are these creatures, Major?
"Oh--about sixty centimeters long, I should say."
"And we have consumed nine of them, is that correct?" "Nearer eight," George said. "These two are only half gone."
"In Other words," McCarty said, "We have had two apiece. That should be ample. Don't you agree, Major?"
George said earnestly, "You're wrong, Miss McCarty. You're thinking in terms of human food requirements, whereas this organism has a different metabolic rate and at least three times the mass of four human beings. Look at it this way--the four of us together had a mass of about three hundred kilos, and yet twenty hours after this thing absorbed us, it was hungry again. Well, these animals wouldn't weigh much more than twenty kilos apiece at one G--and according to your scheme we've got to hold out until sometime after daybreak tomorrow."
"Something in that," Gumbs said. "Yes, on the whole, Miss McCarty, I think we had better forage while we can. It won't take us more than half an hour longer, at this rate."
"Very well. Be as quick as you can."
They moved on to the next pair of victims. George's brain was working furiously. It was no good arguing with McCarty, and Gumbs was not much better, but he had to try. If he could only convince Gumbs, then Bellis would fall in with the majority--maybe. It was the only hope he had.
"Gumbs," he said,''have you given any thought to what's going to happen to us when we get back?"
"Not quite my line, you know. Leave that to the technical fellows like yourself."
"No, that isn't what I mean. Suppose you were the C.O. of this team, and four other people had fallen into this organism instead of us--"
"What, what? I don't follow."
George patiently repeated it.
"Yes, I see what you mean. And so--"
"What orders would you give?"
Gumbs thought a moment. "Turn the thing over to the bio section, I suppose. What else?"
"You don't think you might order it destroyed as a possible menace?"
"Good Lord, I suppose I might. No, but you see, we'll be careful what we say in the note. We'll point out that we're a, valuable specimen, and so on. Handle with care." "All right," George said, "but suppose that works, then what? Since it is out of your line, I'll tell you. Nine chances out of ten, bio section will classify us as a possible enemy weapon. That means, first of all, that we'll go through a full-dress interrogation--and I don't have to tell you what that can be like."
"Major Gumbs," said McCarty stridently, "Meister will be executed for disloyalty at the first opportunity. You are forbidden to talk to him, under the same penalty."
"But she can't stop you from listening to me," George said tensely. "In the second place, Gumbs, they'll take samples. Without anaesthesia. And finally, they'll either destroy us just the same, or they'll send us back to the nearest strong point for more study. We will then be Federation property, Gumbs, in a top-secret category, and since nobody in Intelligence will ever dare to take the responsibility of clearing us, we'll _stay_ there.
"Gumbs, this _is_ a valuable specimen, but it will never do anybody any good if we 80 back to camp. Whatever we discover about it, even if it's knowledge that could save billions of lives, that will be top-secret too, and it'll never get past the walls of Intelligence... If you're still hoping that they can get you out of this, you're wrong. This isn't like limb grafts, _your whole body_ has been destroyed. Gumbs, everything bur your nervous system and your eyes. The only new body we'll get is the one we make ourselves. We've got to stay here and--and work this out ourselves."
"Major Gumbs," said McCarty, "I think we have wasted enough time. Begin your search for the materials I need."
For a moment Gumbs was silent, and their collective body did not move.
Then he said: "Yes, that was a leaf, a twig and a bunch of berries, wasn't it? Or mud. Miss McCarty, unofficially of course, there's one point I'd like your opinion on. Before we begin. That is to say, I daresay they'll be able to patch together some sort of bodies for us, don't you think? I mean, one technical fellow says one thing, another says the opposite. Do you see what I'm driving at?"
George had been watching McCarty's new limb uneasily. It was flexing rhythmically and, he was almost certain, growing minutely larger. The fingers groped occasionally in the dry grass, plucking first a single blade, then two together, finally whole tuft. Now she said: "I have no opinion, Major. The question is irrelevant. Our duty is to return to camp. That is all we need to know.
"Oh, I quite agree with you there," said Gumbs. "And besides, there really isn't any alternative, is there?"
George, staring down at one of the fingerlike projections visible below the rim of the monster, was passionately willing it to turn into an arm. He had, he suspected, started much too late.
"The alternative," he said, "is simply to keep on going as we are. Even if the Federation holds this planet for a century, there'll be places on it that will never be explored. We'll be safe."
"I mean to say," added Gumbs as if he had only paused for thought, "a fellow can't very well cut himself off from civilization, can he?"