"Barry Longyear - Enemy Mine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Longyear Barry)

"And so what? Look, Jerry, those ration bars aren't going to last forever. What are we going to eat when
they're all gone?"
"Eat?" Jerry looked at the wriggling pocket of insect life and grimaced. "Ne, Davidge. Before then
pickup. Search us find, then pickup."
"What if they don't find us? What then?"
Jerry grimaced again and turned back to the half-completed house. "Water we drink, then until pickup."
He had muttered something about kiz excrement and my tastebuds, then walked out of sight.
Since then I had built up the pool's walls, hoping the increased protection from the harsh environment
would increase the herd. I looked under several rocks, but no increase was apparent. And, again, I
couldn't bring myself to swallow one of the things. I replaced the rock I was looking under, stood and
looked out to the sea. Although the eternal cloud cover still denied the surface the drying rays of Fyrine,
there was no rain and the usual haze had lifted.
In the direction past where I had pulled myself up on the beach, the sea continued to the horizon. In the
spaces between the whitecaps, the water was as grey as a loan officer's heart. Parallel lines of rollers
formed approximately five kilometers from the island. The center, from where I was standing, would
smash on the island, while the remainder steamed on. To my right, in line with the breakers, I could just
make out another small island perhaps ten kilometers away. Following the path of the rollers, I looked
far to my right, and where the grey-white of the sea should have met the lighter grey of the sky, there
was a black line on the horizon.
The harder I tried to remember the briefing charts on Fyrine IV's land masses, the less clear it became.
Jerry couldn't remember anything either -at least nothing it would tell me. Why should we remember?
The battle was supposed to be in space, each one trying to deny the other an orbital staging area in the
Fyrine system. Neither side wanted to set foot on Fyrine, much less fight a battle there. Still, whatever it
was called, it was land and considerably larger than the sand and rock bar we were occupying.
How to get there was die problem. Without wood, fire, leaves, or animal skins, Jerry and I were destitute
compared to the average poverty-stricken caveman. The only thing we had that would float was the
nasesay. The capsule. Why not? The only real problem to overcome was getting Jerry to go along with it.
That evening, while the greyness made its slow transition to black, Jerry and I sat outside the shack
nibbling our quarter portions of ration bars. The Drac's yellow eyes studied the dark line on the horizon,
then it shook its head. "Ne, Davidge. Dangerous is."
I popped the rest of my ration bar into my mouth and talked around it. "Any more dangerous than
staying here?"

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"Soon pickup, ne?"
I studied those yellow eyes. "Jerry, you don't believe that any more than I do." I leaned forward on the
rock and held out my hands. "Look, our chances will be a lot better on a larger land mass. Protection
from the big waves, maybe food . . ."
"Not maybe, ne?" Jerry pointed at the water. "How nasesay steer, Davidge? In that, how steer? Ess eh
soakers, waves, beyond land take, gavey? Bresha," Jerry's hands slapped together. "Ess eh bresha rocks
on, ne? Then we death."
I scratched my head. "The waves are going in that direction from here, and so is the wind. If the land
mass is large enough, we don't have to steer, gavey?"
Jerry snorted. "Ne large enough, then?"
"I didn't say it was a sure thing."
"Ess?"
"A sure thing; certain, gavey?" Jerry nodded. "And for smashing up on the rocks, it probably has a beach
like this one."