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

the egir," he told himself unsteadily. Had he imagined that scarlet hair? After all, she was no
more than a pretty brown girl-creature from one of the many half-human races peopling the planets.
No more than that, after all. A pretty little thing, but animal 'He laughed a little shakily.
"No more of that," he said. "God knows I'm no angel, but there's got to be a limit somewhere.
Here." He crossed to the bed and sorted out a pair of blankets from the untidy heap, tossing them
to the far corner of the room. "You can sleep there." Wordlessly she rose from the floor and
began to rearrange the blankets, the uncomprehending resignation of the ani-mal eloquent in every
line of her.

Smith had a strange dream that night. He thought he had awakened to a room full of darkness
and moonlight and moving shadows, for the nearer moon of Mars was 'racing through the sky and
everything on the planet below her was endued with a restless life in the dark. And something . .
. some 'nameless, unthinkable thing ... was coiled about his throat ... something'like a soft
snake, wet and warni. It lay loose and light about his neck ... and it was moving gently, very
gently, with a soft, caressive pressure that sent little thrills of delight through every nerve
and fiber of him, a per-ilous delight-beyond physical pleasure, deeper than joy of the mind. That
warm softness was caressing the very roots of his soul with a terrible intimacy. The ectasy of it
left him weak, and yet he knew-in a flash of knowledge born of this impossible dream-that the
soulshould not be handled. . . . And with that knowledge a horror broke upon him, turning the
pleasure into a rapture of revulsion, hateful, horrible-but still most foully sweet. He tried to
lift his hands and tear the dream-monstrosity from his throat-tried but half-heartedly , for
though his soul was revolted to its very deeps, yet the delight of his body was so great that his
hands all but refused the attempt. But when at last he tried to lift his arms a cold shock went
over him and he found that he could not stir . . . his body lay stony as marble beneath the blan-
kets, a living marble that shuddered with a dreadful delight through every rigid vein.
The revulsion grew strong upon him as he struggled against the paralyzing dream-a struggle of
soul against sluggish body-titanically, until the moving dark was streaked with blankness that
clouded and closed about him at last and he sank back into the oblivion from which be bad
awakened.
.Next morning, when the bright sunlight shining through Mars' clear thin air awakened him,
Smith lay for a while trying to remember. The dream had,been more vivid than reality, but he
could not quite recall . . . only that it had been more sweet and horrible than anything else in
life. He lay puzzling for a while, until a soft sound from the corner aroused him from hi's
thoughts and he sat up to see the girl lying in a cat-like coil on her blankets, watching him with
round, grave eyes. He regarded her somewhat ruefully.




.

"Morning," he said "I've just had the devil of a dream. . Well, hungry?"She shook her head


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silently, and he could have sworn there was a covert gleam of strange amusement in her eyes.
He stretched and yawned, dismissing the nightmare tem-porarily from his mind.
"What am I going to do with you?" he inquired, turning to more immediate matters. "I'm leaving