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

She did not answer that, but her mouth curved into a slow smile. On a woman it would have been
reply enough-pro-vocative, daring. On Shambleau there was something pitiful and horrible in it-so
human on the face of one half-animal. And yet ... that sweet brown body curving so softly from
the tatters of scarlet leather-the velvety texture of that brownness-the white-flashi-ng smile....
Smith was aware of a stirring excitement within him. After all-time would be hanging heavy now
until Yarol came. . . . Speculatively he allowed the steel-pale eyes to wander over her, with a
slow regard that missed nothing. And when he spoke he was aware that his voice had deepened a
little.

"Come here," he said.
She came forward slowly, on bare clawed feet that made -no slightest sound on the floor, and stood
before him with downcast eyes and mouth trembling in that pitifully human smile. He took her by
the shoulders-velvety soft shoulders, of a creamy smoothness that was not the texture of human
flesh. A little tremor went over her, perceptibly, at the con-tact of his hands. Northwest Smith
caught his breath sud-denly and dragged her to him . . . sweet yielding brownness in the circle of
his arms . . . heard her own breath catch and quicken as her velvety arms closed about his neck.
And then he was looking down into her face, very near, and the green animal eyes met his with the
pulsing pupils and the flicker of-something-deep behind their shallows-and through the rising
clamor of his blood, even as he stooped his lips to hers, Smith felt something deep within him
shudder away-inexplicable, instinctive, revolted. What it might be he had no words to tell, but
the very touch of her was suddenly loathsome-so soft and velvet and unhuman-and it might have been
an animal's,face that lifted itself to his mouth-the dark knowledge looked hungrily from the
darkness of those slit pupils-and for a mad instant he knew that same wild, feverish revulsion he
had seen in the faces of the mob.


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"God!" he gasped, a far more ancient invocation against evil than he realized, then or ever. and
he ripped her arms from his neck, swung her away with such a force that she reeled half across the
room. Smith fell back against the door, breathing heavily,. and stared at lwr while the wild re-
volt died slowly within him.

She had fallen to the floor beneath the window, and as she lay there against the wall with bent
head he saw, curiously, that her turban bad slipped-the turban that he had been so sure covered
baldness-and -a lock of scarlet hair fell below the binding leather, hair as scarlet as her
garment, as un-humanly red as her eyes were unhumanly green. He stared, and shook his head
dizzily and stared again, for it seemed to him that the -thick lock of crimson had moved,
squirmed of itself against her cheek.

At the contact of it her hands flew up and she tucked it away with a very human gesture and
then dropped her head again into
her hands. And from the deep shadow of her fingers he thought she wa s staring up at him covertly
.
Smith drew a deep breath and passed a hand across his forehead. The inexplicable -moment
had gone as quickly as it came-too swiftly for him to understand or analyze it. "-Got to lay Off