"C M Kornbluth - Thirteen O'Clock" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

said ELLIL. He rolled the name over in his

mind and decided that he didn't recognize it. But he couldn't be far from a town or house.

Ahead of him sounded a thunderous grunt.

"Bears!" he thought in a panic. (They had been his childhood bogies.) But it was no bear, he saw. He
almost wished it was. For the thing that was veering on him was a frightful composite of every monster of
mythology, menacing him with sabre-like claws and teeth and gusts of flame from its ravening throat. It
stood only about as high as the man, and its legs were long, but it seemed ideally styled for destruction.

Without ado he jumped for a tree and dug his toes into the grooves of the bark, shimyng up it like a
child. With the creature's тАв flaming breath scorching his heels he climbed, stopping only at the third set of
main branches, twenty-five feet from the ground. There he clung, limp and shuddering, and looked down.

The creature was hopping grotesquely about the base of the tree, its baleful eyes en him. The man's hand
reached for a firmer purchase on the branch, and part came away in his hand. He had picked a sort of
coconut-heavy, hard, and with sharp corners. Peter raised his eyes. Why not? Carefully noting the path
that the creature below took around the trunk he poised the fruit carefully. Wetting a finger, he adjusted
the placing. On a free drop that long you had to allow for windage, he thought.

Twice more around -went the creature, and then its head and the murderous fruit reached the same point
at the same time. There was a crunching noise which Peter could hear from where he was and the insides
of its head spilled on the forest sward.

"Clever," said a voice beside him on the branch.

He turned with a cry. The speaker was only faintly visible- the diaphanous shadow of a young girl, not
more than eighteen, he thought. Calmly it went on, "You must be very mancic to be able to land a fruit so
accurately. Did he give you an extra sense?" Her tone was light, but from what he could see of her dim
features they were curled in an angry smile.

Nearly letting go of the branch in his bewilderment he answered as calmly as he could, "I don't know
who you mean. And what is mancic?"

"Innocent," she said coldly. "Eh? I could push you off this

branch without a second thought. But first you tell me where Almarish got the model for you. I might turn
out a few myself. Are you a doppleganger or a golem?"

"Neither," he spat, bewildered and horrified. "I don't even know what they are!"

"Strange," said the girl. "I can't read you." Her eyes squinted prettily and suddenly became solid,
luminous wedges in her transparent face. "Well," she sighed, "let's get out of this." She took the man by
his elbow and dropped from the branch, hauling him after her. Ready for a sickening impact with the
ground, Peter winced as his heels touched it light as a feather. He tried to disengage the girl's grip, but it
was steel-hard.

"None of that," she warned him. "I have a blast-finger. Or didn't he tell you?"