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

deep water, cut up by a turmoil of currents. It was impossible to take the sea detour; there was
nothing else for it but to swerve inland, a dangerous but inevitable course. Scott postponed the
plunge as long as possible, till the scarp of Signal Rock, jet black with leprous silvery patches
on its surface, barred the way. With a quizzical look at Kane he turned sharply to his right and
headed for the jungle.
'Half a mile of forest equals a hundred miles of beach hiking,' he remarked.
'That bad, sir? I've never tackled it.'
'Nobody does, unless they have to. Keep your eyes open and your gun ready. Don't wade through
water, even when you can see bottom. There are some little devils that are pretty nearly
transparent - vampire fish. If a few of those fasten on you, you'll need a transfusion in less
than a minute. I wish the volcanoes would kick up a racket. The beasties generally lie low when
that happens.'
Under a tree Scott stopped, seeking a straight, long limb. It took a while to find a suitable one,
in that tangle of coiling lianas, but finally he succeeded, using his smatchet blade to hack
himself a light five-foot pole. Kane at his heels, he moved on into the gathering gloom.
'We may be stalked,' he told the boy. 'Don't forget to guard the rear.'
The sand had given place to sticky whitish mud that plastered the men to their calves before a few
moments had passed. A patina of slickness seemed to overlay the ground. The grass was coloured so
much like the mud itself that it was practically invisible, except by its added slipperiness.
Scott slowly advanced, keeping close to the wall of rock on his left where the tangle was not so
thick. Nevertheless he had to use the smatchet more than once to cut a passage through vines.


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He stopped, raising his hand, and the squelch of Kane's feet in the mud paused. Silently Scott
pointed. Ahead of them in the cliff base was the mouth of a burrow.
The captain bent down, found a small stone, and threw it toward the den. He waited, one hand
lightly on his gun, ready to see something flash out of that burrow and race toward them. In the
utter silence a new sound made itself heard- tiny goblin drums, erratic and resonant in a faraway
fashion. Water, dropping from leaf to leaf, in the soaked jungle ceiling above them. Tink, link,
tink-tink, link, tink-tink-
'O.K.,' Scott said quietly. 'Watch it, though.' He went
on, gun drawn, till they were level with the mouth of the burrow. 'Turn, Kane. Keep your eye on it
till I tell you to stop.' He gripped the boy's arm and guided him, bolstering his own weapon. The
pole, till now held between biceps and body, slipped into his hand. He used it to probe the slick
surface of the mud ahead. Sinkholes and quicksands were frequent, and so were traps, camouflaged
pits built by mud-wolves - which, of course, were not wolves, and belonged to no known genus. On
Venus, the fauna had more subdivisions than on old Earth, and lines of demarcation were more
subtle.
'All right now.'
Kane, sighing with relief, turned his face forward again. 'What was it?'
'You never know what may come out of those holes,' Scott told him. 'They come fast, and they're
usually poisonous. So you can't take chances with the critters. Slow down here. I don't like the
looks of that patch ahead.'
Clearings were unusual in the forest. There was one here, twenty feet wide, slightly saucer-
shaped. Scott gingerly extended the pole and probed. A faint ripple shook the white mud, and
almost before it had appeared the captain had unholstered his pistol and was blasting shot after
shot at the movement.