"Henry Kuttner - Clash by Night" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kuttner Henry)

Neither kind was pleasant company.
There were flying creatures, too, but these lived in the upper strata, among the leaves. And there
were ambiguous horrors that lived in the deep mud and the stagnant pools under the forest, but no
one knew much about these.
'Well,' Scott said, 'that's that.'


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Kane nodded. 'I guess I should have checked the motors.'
'You wouldn't have found anything. Latent flaws - it would have taken black night to bring 'em
out. Just one of those things. Keep your gas mask handy, now. If we get anywhere near poison
flowers and the wind's blowing this way, we're apt to keel over like that.' Scott opened a
waterproof wallet and took out a strip of sensitized litmus, which he clipped to his wrist. 'If
this turns blue, that means gas, even if we don't smell it.'
'Yes, sir. What now?'
'We-ell- the boat's gone. We can't telaudio for help.' Scott fingered the blade of his smatchet
and slipped it into the belt sheath. 'We head for the fort. Eight miles. Two hours, if we can
stick to the beach and if we don't run into trouble. More than that if Signal Rock's ahead of us,
because we'll have to detour inland in that case.' He drew out a collapsible single-lenser
telescope and looked south-west along the shore. 'Uh-huh. We detour.'
A breath of sickening sweetness gusted down from the jungle roof. From above, Scott knew, the
forest looked surprisingly lovely. It always reminded him of an antique candlewick spread he had
once bought Jeana - immense rainbow flowers scattered over a background of pale green. Even among
the flora competition was keen; the plants vied in producing colours and scents that would attract
the winged carriers of pollen.
There would always be frontiers, Scott thought. But they might remain unconquered for a long time,
here on Venus. The Keeps were enough for the undersea folk; they were self-sustaining. And the
Free Companions had no need to
carve out empires on the continents. They were fighters, not agrarians. Land hunger was no longer
a part of the race. It might come again, but not in the time of the Keeps.
The jungles of Venus held secrets he would never know. Men can conquer lands from the air, but
they cannot hold them by that method. It would take a long, slow period of encroachment, during
which the forest and all it represented would be driven back, step by painful step - and that
belonged to a day to come, a time Scott would not know. The savage world would be tamed. But not
now- not yet.
At the moment it was untamed and very dangerous. Scott stripped off his tunic and wrung water from
it. His clothing would not dry in this saturated air, despite the winds. His trousers clung to him
stickily, clammy coldness in their folds.
'Ready, Kane?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Then let's go.'
They went south-west, along the beach, at a steady, easy lope that devoured miles. Speed and
alertness were necessary in equal proportion. From time to time Scott scanned the sea with his
telescope, hoping to sight a vessel. He saw nothing. The ships would be in harbour, readying for
the battle; and planes would be grounded for installation of the new telaudio device Cine Rhys had
mentioned.
Signal Rock loomed ahead, an outthrust crag with eroded, unscalable sides towering two hundred
feet and more. The black strip of sand ended there. From the rock there was a straight drop into