"1 The Integral Trees" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

It was a digger. Those little wings would barely move it. Everything in the Smoke Ring could fly in some sense; but this one would prefer to dig a hole and ambush its prey. Even its trunk wasn't all that powerful. The Grad searched until he found the sting that had been in its tip. The size of an index finger, it was embedded in Glory's pack. Glory nearly fainted.

They kept the claws. dave would use them to tip his grapnels. They cut steaks to be broiled and passed to the rest, who by now were moored on spikes outside. They set bigger slabs of meat to smoke at the back of the wooden cave.

Gavving realized that his eyes were blurry with exhaustion. Glory was streaming sweat. He put his arm over her shoulders and announced, "We quit."

"Good enough," dave called in. "Take our perches. Alfin, let's carve up the rest."

dave's team was well fed, overfed. They drifted on lines outside the cave. Meat smoked inside. The carcass, mostly bones now, had been set to block the entrance.

dave said, "Citizens, give me a status report. How are we doing? Is anyone hurt?"

"I hurt all over," Jiovan said and scowled at the chorus of agreement.

"All over is good. Glory, did that thing break any of your ribs?"

"I don't think so. Bruises."

"Uh-huh." Clave sounded surprised. "Nobody's fallen off. Nobody's hurt. Have we lost any equipment?"

There was a silence. Gavving spoke into it. "Clave, what are you doing here?"

"We're exploring the trunk, and renewing the Quinn markings, and stopping a famine, maybe. Today's catch is a good first step."

Gavving was prepared to drop it, but Alfin wasn't. "The boy means, what are you doing here? You, the mighty hunter, why did you go out to die with the lames?"

There was muttering, perhaps, but no overt reaction to the word lame& Clave smiled at AIim. "Turn it around, Quinn Tribe's custodian of the treemouth. Why was the tribe able to spare you?"

The west wind had softened as they climbed, but it was still formidable; it blew streamers of smoke past the carcass. Alfin forced words from himself "The Chairman thought it was a good joke. And nobody nobody wanted to speak up for me."

"Nobody loves you."

Alfin nodded and sighed as if a burden had been lifted from him. "Nobody loves me. Your turn."

Gavving grinned. Clave was stuck, and he knew it. He said, "Mayrin doesn't love me. I traded her in for two prettier, more loving women. Mayrin is the Chairman's daughter."

"That's not all of it and you know it."

"If you know better than I do, then keep talking," dave said reasonably.

"The Grad can back me up. He knows some tribal history. When things go wrong, when citizens get unhappy, the leader's in trouble. The Scientist himself almost got drafted! The Chairman is scared, that's what. The citizens are hungry, and there's an obvious replacement for the Chairman. dave, he's scared of you."

"Grad?"

"The Scientist knows what he's doing."

"He blamed it all on you!" Alfin cried. "I was there!"

"I know. He had his reasons." The Grad noticed the silence and laughed. "No, I didn't cause the drought! We rounded Gold, and Gold swung us too far in toward Voy, down to where the Smoke Ring thins out. It's a gravity effect-"