"Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle - The Gripping Hand" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

RAVEN: Progenerative force in Inuit mythology.
SEDNA: Goddess of the sea and of the sea's life.
SEELUMKADCHLUK: Where the sky meets the sea; the barrier between reality and the Inuit spiritual
world.
TERICHIK: A gigantic caterpillar-like monster; the spirit form of Ahk-lut.
TIN-MI-UK-PUKS, or THUNDERBIRDS: Fabulous Roc-like creatures.
TORNGARSOAK: Sedna's lover, Lord of the Hunt.
TORNR~4IT: Ghost who serves an angakok, usually as a source of information.
UNITED MOSLEM ACTIVIST FRONT or UMAF: A radical mideastem terrorist organization.
USIK: A weapon crafted from the pubic bone of a walrus.
WINIGO: Inuit Yeti.
WOLFALCONS: Hybrid creatures, half wolf, half giant bird of prey.


THE BARSOOM PROJECT


PROLOGUE


Like a raging mountain, the Terichik rose screaming from a frozen, nightdark sea. Its many-
sectioned, grotesquely wormlike body reared up; tons of water and ice thundered into the ocean
with a howl like the death of worlds. The black night swirled wind-whipped snow through mist that
tasted of salt. The Tenchik's mouth gaped cavernously. Endless rows of serrated teeth gleamed as
it shrieked its mindless wrath. Its breath was a cold and fetid wind.
The humans beneath it were warrior and wizard, princess and commoner. They were frail meat in the
Terichik's path, brittle fleshly twigs tumbled in an angry storm. They scrambled for safety, ran
back onto land, away from the sea. They fled past the wreckage of the shattered Inuit village:
rows of crushed houses, a great stone lodge with its roof stove in, boat hulls splintered and
scattered like insect husks.
Buiwar was the first Adventurer to die, and he died well. He was the greatest warrior among them,


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but foolish to think that his enchanted usik, the pubic bone of the sacred walrus, could stand
against the Tenchik. Even faced by a beast to dwarf ten killer whales, Bulwar roared defiance and
sprang forward. His ice-caked black beard flagged in the frigid air. His mightily thewed arms
coiled beneath the bear furs that lent him strength and courage. Buiwar had once been an ordinary
man, a "systems analyst" in the white man's world. Here where the heavens met the earth, he was a
great warrior, a great force for good.
His magic, his courage, his strength were not enough. The Terichik crushed him, savaged his body
with fanged cilia. His screams echoed in their heads long after his body had vanished into its
gaping maw.
The humans retreated. There were twelve now, people of the tundras and the people from the white
world beyond.
They ran until the sound of rifle shots split their screams. Two more of their number fell,
trapped in a withering crossfire.
Agile and lithe, beautiful Eviane rolled to safety behind an abandoned boathouse. Even as she hit