"William Morrison - The Haters" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morrison William)

McGant came out of the inside of the ship and grinned at him. "No trouble, Captain?"
"None so far."
"It's like I expected. That A-race isn't dangerous at all. And as for brainsтАФwell, they've got just
enough to keep out of our way."
"We didn't run across any yesterday?"
"There don't seem to be many around. One of the men came across a single specimen. He shot at it,
but the thing was quite a way off, and he missed."
"Tell the men not to kill them. We'll see if we can tame them and get some use out of them."
But he wasn't actually counting on that. It was enough, he told himself, to know that the race was
harmless. From now on, the only thing that counted was the rate at which the metal could be mined and
brought to the ship.
All the same, he experienced a feeling of uneasiness later, when he overheard two of the men talking.
One of them was jeering, "Don't tell me you missed him, Fernald. Why, I thought you could hit a target
with that gun of yours from ten miles away."
"I can. But I'm not used to the air here, and my range-finder doesn't work the way it does on Earth
or Mars."
Then the two men became aware that Grayson was near them, and they slouched to attention and
saluted sloppily. What did the man miss? Grayson asked himself. An animal at which he was shooting, of
course. But what sort of animal? One of the A-race?
Discipline was bad enough without letting the men know that he had overheard part of their
conversation and wanted to hear the rest of it. He passed by them, and noticed that they resumed talking
in low voices when he was out of earshot.
The incident annoyed him, and the next day he himself went out with one of the hunting parties. The
animals had learned caution now, and were in no hurry to show themselves. One of the men had to flush
them out of their hiding places with a strong ultrasonic beam, which he swept in all directions, and even
then they moved so swiftly that they were not easy to kill. By the time you aimed at them they had
changed color and taken refuge in their next hideout. And then you had to go through the whole process
all over again.
It was an hour before Grayson himself got a shot. When he did let loose finally it was at a small
lizard-like animal only a foot high that came placidly out of a burrow thirty feet away and stood there, as
if oblivious of the irritation of the ultrasonic beam, examining the men with interest.
Grayson's blast had more power in it than he would have wanted to use on so small a creature. It
caught the lizard full in the middle, and knocked it back. For a moment Grayson was afraid that he had
torn the thing to pieces.
He hadn't. As he watched in amazement, the animal picked itself up, completely unhurt, and moved
slowly into its burrow again.
One of the men laughed uneasily. "You didn't catch it head on, Captain. You just sideswiped it."
Grayson said firmly, "I hit it head on."
"Besides," said another of the men, "even a glancing shot with that much power should have killed it."
"It should have," agreed Grayson. "Has anybody here killed one of these things before?"
"I aimed at one yesterday, Captain, but I missed."
It was Fernald who spoke. Captain Grayson said sharply, "Sure you missed?"
"Not now I ain't, Captain. But I thought so at the time."
"Prentiss," said Grayson, "flush that thing out with the ultrasonic beam again. I want another look at
it."
The ultrasonic beam rose to full power. Nothing came out of the burrow.
Grayson's forehead was damp. He said, "Somebody toss a grenade down there. That should get it
out, in pieces if need be."
They stepped back and Fernald tossed the grenade. Fernald liked to toss grenades. The clumps of
dirt shot up and out in all directions, and left a hollow a dozen feet across. At the bottom of the hollow