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

crowd surged for-ward to the very edge of the are, their clamor growing loud-er. "Shambleau! Kick
her out here 1 Give us Shambleau I Shambleau!"
Smith dropped his indolent pose like a cloak and planted both feet wide, swinging up his gun
threateningly. "Keep back!" he yelled. "She's mine! Keep back!"
He had no intention of using that heat-beam. He knew by now that they would not kill him unless
he started the gun-play himself, and he did not mean to give up his life for any girl alive. But
a severe mauling he expected, and he braced himself instinctively as the mob heaved within itself.
.. To his astonishment a thing happened then that he had never known to happen before. At his
shouted defiance the foremost of the mob-those who had heard him clearly -drew back a little, not
in alarm but evidently surprised. The ex-Patrolman said, "Yours! She's yours?" in a voice from
which puzzlement crowded out the anger.
Smith spread his booted legs wide before the crouching figure and flourished his gun.

"Yes," he said. "And I'm keeping her! Stand back there!"

The man stared at him wordlessly, and horror and disgust and incredulity mingled on his weather-
beaten face, The incredulity triumphed for a moment and he said again,
"Yours!"
Smith nodded defiance.
The man stepped back suddenly, unutterable contempt in his very pose. He waved an arm to the
crowd and said loudly, ' 'It's-his!" and the press melted away, gone silent, too, and the look of
contempt spread from face to face.



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The ex-Patrolman spat on the slag-paved street and turn-ed his back indifferently. "Keep her,
then," he advised brief-ly over one shoulder. "But don't let her out again in this town!"
Smith stared in perplexity almost open-mouthed as the suddenly scornful mob began to break up.
His mind was in a whirl. That such bloodthirsty animosity should vanish in a breath he could not
believe. And the curious mingling of con-tempt and disgust on the faces he saw baffled him even
more. Lakkdarol was anything but a puritan town-it did not enter his head f or a moment that his
claiming the brown girl as his own had caused that strangely shocked revulsion to spread through
the crowd. No, it was something deeper rooted than that. Instinctive, instant disgust had been
in the faces he saw- they would have looked less so if he had ad-mitted cannibalism or Pharol-
worship.
And they were leaving his vicinity as swiftly as if what-ever unknowing sin he had committed were
contagious. The street was emptying as rapidly as it had filled. He saw a sleek Venusian glance
back over his shoulder as he turned the corner and sneer, "Shambleau!" and the word awoke a new
line of speculation in Smith's mind. Shambleau! Vague-ly of French origin, it must be. And
strange enough to hear it from the lips of Venusians and Martian drylanders, but it was their use
of it that puzzled him more. "We never let those things live," the ex-Patrolman had said. It
reminded him dimly of something. . . an ancient line from some writ-ing in his own tongue . . .
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." He smiled to himself at the similarity, and simulta-
neously was aware of the girl at, his elbow.