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

"Nothing." He toed a pile of blankets and added, "At least we won't go naked."
"Hungry, though."
"Maybe there s something to eat on the trunk. There'd better be."
The Grad had long been Gavving's friend, but he wasn't much of a hunter. And Merril? Merril would have been a big woman if her tiny, twisted legs had matched her torso. Her long fingers were callused, her arms were long and strong; and why not? She used them for everything, even walking. She clung to the wicker wall of the Commons, impassive, waiting.
One-legged Jiovan stood beside her, with a hand in the brauchiets to hold him balanced. Gavving could remember Jiovan as an agile, reckless hunter. Then something had attacked him, something he would never describe. Jiovan had returned barely alive, with ribs broken and his left leg torn away, the stump tourrnquetted with his line. Four years later the old wounds still hurt him constantly, and he never let anyone forget it.
Glory was a big-boned, homely woman, middle-aged, with no children. Her clumsiness had given her an unwanted fame. She blamed Harp the teller for that, and not without justice. There was the tale of the turkey cage; and he told another regarding the pink scar that ran down her right leg, gained when she was still involved in cooking duties.
The hate in Alfin's eyes recalled the time she'd clouted him across the ear with a branchwood beam, but it spoke more of Alfin's tendency to
hold grudges. Gardener, garbage man, funeral director . . Х he was no hunter, let alone an explorer, but he was here. No wonder he'd looked bereaved.
Glory waited cross-legged, eyes downcast. Alfin watched her with smoldering hate. Merril seemed impassive, relaxed, but Jiovan was muttering steadily under his breath.
These, his companions? Gavving~s belly clenched agonizingly on the musrum.
Then Clave entered the Commons, briskly, with a young woman on each arm. He looked about him as if liking what he saw.
It was true. Clave was coming.
They watched him prodding the piled equipment with his feet, nodding, nodding. "Good," he said briskly and looked about him at his waiting companions. "We're going to have to carry all this treefodder. Start dividing it up. You'll probably want it on your back, moored with your line, but take your choice. Lose your pack and I'll send you home."
The musruin loosed its grip on Gavving's belly. Clave was the ideal hunter: built long and narrow, two and a half meters of bone and muscle. He could pick a man up by wrapping the fingers of one hand around the man's head, and his long toes could throw a rock as well as Gavving's hands. His companions were Jayan and Jinny, twins, the dark and pretty daughters of Martal and a long-dead hunter. Without orders, they began loading equipment into the sacks. Others moved forward to help.
Alfin spoke. "I take it you're our leader?"
"Right."
"Just what are we supposed to be doing with all this?"
"We go up along the trunk. We renew the Quinn markings as we go. We keep going until we find whatever it takes to save the tribe. It could be food-"
"On the bare trunk?"
Clave looked him over. "We've spent all our lives along two klomters of branch. The Scientist tells me that the trunk is a hundred klomters long. Maybe more. We don't know what's up there. Whatever we need, it isn't here."
"You know why we're going. We're being thrown out," Alfln said. "Nine fewer mouths to feed, and look at who-"
dave rode him down. He could outshout thunder when he wanted
to. "Would you like to stay, Alfin?" He waited, but Alfin didn't answer. "Stay, then. You explain why you didn't come."
"I'm coming." Alfln's voice was almost inaudible. dave had made no threats, and didn't have to. They had been assigned. Anyone who stayed would be subject to charges of mutiny.
And that didn't matter either. If Clave was going, then. . . Alfin was wrong, and Gavving's stomach had been wrong too. They would find what the tribe needed, and they would return. Gavving set to assembling his pack.
Clave said, "We've got six pairs of claw sandals. Jayan Jinny, Grad
Х Gavving. I'll take the extras. We'll find out who else needs them. Everyone take four mooring spikes. Take a few rocks. I mean it. You need at least one to hammer spikes into wood, and you may want some for throwing. Has everybody got his dagger?"

It was night when they pulled themselves out of the foliage, and they still emerged blinking. The trunk seemed infinitely tall. The far tuft was almost invisible, blurred and blued almost to the color of the sky.
Clave called, "Take a few minutes to eat. Then stuff your packs with foliage. We won't see foliage again for a long time."
Gavving tore off a spine branch laden with green cotton candy. He stuck it between his back and the pack, and started up the trunk~ dave was already ahead of him.
The bark of the trunk was different from the traveling bark of the branch. There were no spine branches, but the bark must have been meters thick, with cracks big enough to partly shield a climber. Smaller cracks made easy grip for fingers.
Gavving wasn't used to claw sandals. He had to kick a little to seat them right, or they slipped. His pack tended top~ him over backward. Maybe he wanted it lower? The tide helped. It pulled him not just downward, but against the trunk too, as if the trunk sloped.
The Grad was moving well but puffing. Maybe he spent too much time studying. But Gavving noted that his pack was larger than the others'. Was he carrying something besides provisions?
Merril had no pack, just her line. She managed to keep up using her arms alone. Jiovan, with two arms and a leg, was overtaking Clave himself, though his jaw was clenched in pain.
Jayan and Jinny, above Gavving on the thick bark, stopped as by mutual accord. They looked down they looked at each other; they seemed about to weep. A sudden, futile surge of homesickness blocked
Gavving's own throat. He lusted to be back in the bachelors' hut, clinging to his bunk, face buried in the foliage wall...
The twins resumed their climb. Gavving followed.

They were moving well, dave thought. He was still worried about Merril. She'd slow them down, but at least she was trying. She'd find it easier, moving with just two arms, when they got near the middle of the trunk. There would be no tide at all there; things would drift without falling, if the Scientist's smoke dreams were to be believed.
Alfin alone was still down there in the last fringes of tuft. Clave had expected trouble from Alfin, but not this. Alfin was the oldest of his team, pushing forty, but he was muscular, healthy.
Appeal to his pride? He called down, "Do you need claw sandals, Aifin?"
Alfin may have considered any number of retorts. What he called back was, "Maybe."
"I'll wait. Jiovan, take the lead."
Clave worked his pack open while Alfin moved up to join him. Alfin was climbing with his eyes half-shut. Something odd there, something wrong.
"I was hoping you could at least keep up with Merril," Clave said, handing Alfin the sandals.
Alfin said nothing while he strapped one on. Then, "What's the difference? We're all dead anyway. But it won't do that copsik any good!
He's only got rid of the lames-"
"Who?"
"The Chairman, our precious Chairman! When people are starving, they'll kick out whoever's in charge. He's kicked out the lames, the ones who couldn't hurt him anyway. Let him see what he can snag when they kick him into the sky."