"Ardath Mayhar - Khi to Freedom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mayhar Ardath)

The bushes were thick and springy, covered with leaves that blazed with
fantastic color. Peering cautiously through that autumnal foliage, I could
see the beach clearly, a strand of white sand that curved gently inward,
just here, and was lapped by purplish waves. That lapping effectively
screened any footfall that might have moved behind me in the forest. I
scattered backward as silently as possible to find a safer place to wait. The
Ginli were looking for me, I was certain, and my tranquilizer gun, my only
weapon while aboard ship, had been smashed in the crash of the lifeboat.
The forest was quiet. Too quiet for a world that had evidenced the many
lifeforms the scanners had indicated. Perhaps my presenceтАФor that of the
GinliтАФhad hushed the native beasts. With that in mind, I looked about for
a tall and climbable tree. Though I invariably mock the Ginli, that is little
more than a matter of whistling in the dark. They are dreadful people. If
they catch me, I will spend eternity in a jarтАФmy brain, which is the only
important part of meтАФas a part of a guidance system. I do not intend to
be caught alive, but I also do not intend to die unnecessarily.
A few rods into the wood, I found a thick-trunked grand-sire of a tree,
with low-growing limbs within springing distance. Like all its companions
that I had seen, it was clad in leaves that merged from cream through
golden amber to scarlet. The deepest tone was brown, and it would have
been a wonderful forest for a wounded man to hide in. Blood wouldnтАЩt
show at all. Luckily, my inept landing hadnтАЩt damaged me much.
As I settled into the thick branches halfway up the tree, I heard the
vicious zzzip! of a Ginli scoutship. I crouched low as it slashed across the
sky, but that reassured me, too. They probably werenтАЩt expecting to find
me in one piece, after the job the hatch had done on the lifeboat. It was
doubtful if any search parties had been sent downтАж at least, not as yet.
And maybe, with luck, they would decide that nobody could have lived
through the mess the landing had made of the lifeboat.
Nevertheless, IтАЩm a great believer in the adage that itтАЩs better to be safe
than sorry. I found a comfortably wide junction of fat limb with
tremendous trunk and stretched out. From my lofty perch, I could see a
fair distance across the forest. A maker of Persian rugs (the Ginli favored
those priceless things) would have gone mad with joy, for this world was
done in all those warm shades in which his kind delighted.
It puzzled me that none of the present generation of planet-grabbers
had yet invaded this beautiful world, cut all the trees for shipment
off-planet, and settled a bunch of swindled and enthusiastic colonists on
what was left. Having grown up on just such a world, I knew their
methods well. My trusting grandparents had found themselves settled on
Big Sandy, where wind-driven sand bombarded everyone twenty-seven
hours a day.
Another zzzip! announced the passage of another Ginli scoutshipтАФor
the same one. I didnтАЩt look up to see. I was becoming bored with the Ginli.
Enbos donтАЩt like being terrified. They tend to turn it into amusement, if
possible. And the Ginli had no sense of humor, which gave me a royal
pain. They took themselves and their project so seriously. It is, as anyone
knows, impossible to limit intellectual development to Primates, but this
slight matter of the facts would never deter the Ginli for a moment.
If, of course, IтАЩd known the sort of people they were, IтАЩd never have