"Norton, Andre - Time Traders II" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

clicked, but imperceptibly slow in setting the proper course. On the instrument, far below, which
checked the globe's new course the mistake was not noted.
The screen of the ship spiraling toward Topaz registered a path which would bring it into violent
contact with the globe. They were still some hundreds of miles apart when the alarm rang. The pilot's
hand clawed out at the bank of controls; under the almost intolerable pressure of their descent, there
was so little he could do. His crooked fingers fell back powerlessly from the buttons and levers; his
mouth was a twisted grimace of bleak acceptance as the beat of the signal increased.
 One of the passengers forced his head around on the padded rest, fought to form words, to speak to
his companion. The other was staring ahead at the screen, his thick lips wide and flat against his teeth
in a snarl of rage.
"They . . . are . . . here. . . ."
Ruthven paid no attention to the obvious as stated by his fellow scientist. His fury was a red,
pulsing thing inside him, fed by his own helplessness. To be pinned here so near his goal, set up as a
target for a mere machine, ate into him like a stream of deadly acid. His big gamble would puff out in
a blast of fire to light up Topaz's sky, with nothing left--nothing. On the armrest of his sling-seat his
nails scratched deep.
The four men in the control cabin could only sit and watch, waiting for the rendezvous which
would blot them out. Ruthven's flaming anger was a futile blaze. His companion in the passenger seat
had closed his eyes, his lips moving soundlessly. The pilot and his assistant divided their attention
between the screen, with its appalling message, and the controls they could not effectively use,
feverishly seeking a way out in these last moments.
Below them in the bowels of the ship were those who would not know the end consciously--save
in one compartment. In a padded cage a prick-eared head stirred where it rested on forepaws, slitted
eyes blinked, aware not only of familiar surroundings, but also of the tension and fear generated by
human minds and emotions levels above. A pointed nose raised, and growling rose from a throat
covered with thick buff-gray hair.
The growl aroused another similar captive. Knowing yellow eyes met yellow eyes. An intelligence,
which was not natural to the animal body which contained it, fought down instinct raging to send both
those bodies hurtling at the fastenings of the twin cages. Curiosity and the ability to adapt had been
bred into these creatures from time immemorial. Then something else had been added to sly and
cunning brains. A step up had been taken--to weld intelligence to cunning, connect thought to -
instinct.
More than a generation earlier mankind had chosen barren desert--the "white sands" of New
Mexico--as a testing ground for atomic experiments. Humankind could be barred, warded out of the
radiation limits. The natural desert dwellers, four-footed and winged, could not be so controlled.
Thousands of years earlier, the first southward roving Amerindian tribes had met with their kind, a
hunter of the open country, a smaller cousin of the wolf, whose natural abilities had made an indelible
impression on the human mind. He appeared in countless Indian legends as the Shaper or the
Trickster, sometimes friend, sometimes enemy. Godling for some tribes, father of all evil for others.
In the wealth of tales the coyote, above all other animals, held pride of place.
Driven by the press of civilization into the badlands and deserts, fought with poison, gun, and trap,
the coyote had survived, adapting to new ways with all his legendary cunning. Those who had reviled
him as vermin had unwillingly added to the folklore which surrounded him, telling their own tales of
robbed traps, skillful escapes. He continued to be a trickster, laughing on moonlit nights from the tops
of ridges at those who would hunt him down.
Then, in the early twenty-first century, when myths were scoffed at, the stories of the coyote's
slyness began once more on a fantastic scale. And finally scientists were sufficiently intrigued to seek
out this creature that seemed to display in truth all the abilities credited to his immortal namesake by
pre-Columbian tribes.
What they discovered was indeed shattering to certain closed minds. For the coyote had not only