"Norton, Andre - Galactic Derelict" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

real identity. We have no idea ╖what might happen if one meddled with the stream of history as we
know it, and we trust we'll never have to find out the hard way."
"Hunters," Travis said slowly, hardly aware at that moment that he spoke at all.
"Mammoth--mastodon--camels--the dire wolf--sabertooth--"
"Why do all those interest you?"
"Why?" Travis echoed and then stopped to examine his reasons. Why had his reaction to Ashe's
picture of the drifting prehistoric hunters in disguise been his own quick inner vision of a land peopled
with strange beasts his own race had never hunted? Or had they? Had the Folsom hunters been his
remote ancestors, as the pre-Celt and Beaker Trader Ashe mentioned been the other's fore-fathers? He
only knew that he had experienced a sudden thrust of excitement which lin-gered with him. There
built up in him a desire to see that world which his own. age knew only by the dim and often
contradictory evidence of rocks, a handful of flint points,-broken bones, the ancient smears of
vanished cooking fires.

28

GALACTIC DERELICT

"My people were hunters--long after yours followed another way of life," he said, making the best
answer he could.
"Right." Ashe's tone held a note of satisfaction. "Now-just reach me that rod." He went back to the job
at hand and Travis settled down as his somewhat bewildered assistant. The Apache knew that he had
made the choice Kelgarries wanted--that he was going to be a part of this whole un-believable
adventure.
The one thing he was sure of during the next two crowded days was that they were indeed working
under pressure and against time. Whether the unexplained threat which seemed to overhang the whole
project came from outside the country or from fear of a policy change here at home, no one bothered to
make clear. But Travis was willing not to inquire about that. It was far more interesting and absorbing
to work with Ross Murdock. They set the proper kind of shafts to the pseudo-Folsom spear points and
then experimented with the spear thrower. This made the efficient weapons they finally turned out
twice as powerful. A seven-foot javelin could be hurled a good hundred and fifty yards or more by the
use of that two-foot shaft of the thrower, and Travis knew that in close infighting it would add
tremendous thrusting power. No wonder a party of hunters so armed dared to go against the mammoth
and the other giant mammals of the period.
In addition to the spears they had flint knives, the counter-parts of those found in the debris of Folsom
camp sites across most of western America. Travis did not know why he was so sure that he was
actually going to use knife and spears and play the role of a wandering prehistoric hunter. Still, he was
sure. He learned from Ross that the rest of the time agents' equipment would not be assembled at the
base until the ex-perts had taped film reports out of the past to use as samples.
On the third day Kelgarries and Ashe took a three-man expedition, loading one 'copter to its limit, out
of the canyon. They were gone for almost a week, and upon their return

29


file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/har...20Norton%20-%20GALACTIC%20%20DERELICT.htm (15 of 114) [1/31/2004 12:56:18 AM]
 file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/Desktop/Andre%20Norton%20-%20GALACTIC%20%20DERELICT.htm

GALACTIC DERELICT