"C. L. Moore - Shambleau" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moore C. L)

her and stood regarding him in the semi-darkness as he stumbled to the table with his load. The
room was unlit again.

"Why don't you turn on the lights?" he demanded irrita-bly after he had barked his shin on the
chair by the table in an effort to deposit his burden there.

"Light and-da'rk-they are alike-to me," she mtir. mured.

"Cat eyes, eh? Well, you look the part. Here, I've brought you some dinner. Take your choice.
Fond of roast beef ? Or how about a little frog-broth?"


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She shook he head and backed away a step.
"No," she said. "I can not-eat your food."

Smith's brows wrinkled. "Didn't you have any of the food-tablets ?"

Again the red turban shook negatively.

"Then you haven't had anything for-why, more than twenty-four hours! You must be starved."
"Not hungry," she denied.

"What can I find for you to eat, then? There's time yet if I hurry. You've got to eat, child."

"I shall-eat," she said softly. "Before long-I shall- feed. I-lave no worry."

She turned away then and stood at the window, looking out over the moonlit landscape as if to end
the conversation. Smith cast her a puzzled glance as he opened the can of roast beef. There had
been an odd undernote in that assurance that, undefinably, he did not like. And the girl had
teeth and tongue and presumably a fairly human digestive system, to judge from her form. It was
nonsense for her to pre-tend that he could find nothing that she could eat. She must have had
some of the food concentrate after all,'he decided, prying up the thermos lid of the inner
container to release the long-sealed savor of the hot meat inside.
"Well, if you won't eat you won't," he observed pbilo-sophically as he poured hot broth and diced
beef into the dish-like lid of the thermos can and extracted the spoon from its hiding-place
between the inner and outer recep-tacles. She turned a little to watch him as he pulled up a
rickety chair and sat down to the food, and after a while the realization that her green gaze was
fixed so unwinkingly upon him made the man nervous, and he said between bites of creamy canal-
apple, "Why don't you try a little of this? It's good."



"The food-I eat is-better," her soft voice told him in its hesitant murmur, and again he felt
rather than heard a faint undernote of unpleasantness in the words. A sudden suspicion struck him
as he pondered on that last remark-some vague memory of horror-tales told about campfires in the
past-and he swung round in the chair to look at her, a tiny, creeping fear unaccountably arising.