"Phillip Francis Nowlan - Buck Rogers 01 - Armageddon 2419" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nowlan Philip Francis)

color. High around his waist he wore a broad thick belt, which bulked up in the back across the
shoulders into something of the proportions of a knapsack.
As I was taking in these details, there came a vivid flash and heavy detonation, like that of a hand
grenade, not far to the left of him. He threw up an arm and staggered a bit in a queer, gliding way;
then he recovered himself and slipped cautiously away from the place of the explosion, crouching
slightly, and still facing the denser part of the forest Every few steps he would raise his arm, and point
into the forest with something he held in.his hand. Wherever he pointed there was a terrifle explosion,
deeper in among the trees. It came to me then that he was shooting with some form of pistol, though
there was neither flash nor detonation from the muzzle of the weapon itself.
After firing several times, he seemed to come to a sudden resolution, and turning in my general
direction, leaped-to my amazement sailing through the air between the sparsely scattered trees in such
a jump as I had never in my life seen before. That leap must have carried him a full fifty feet, although
at the height of his arc, he was not more than ten or twelve feet from the ground.
When he alighted, his foot caught in a projecting root, and he sprawled gently forward. I say "gently"
for he did nut crash down as I expected him to do. The only thing I could compare it with was a
slow-motion cinema, although I have never seen one in which horizontal motions were registered at
normal speed and only the vertical movements were slowed down.
Due to my surprise, I suppose my brain did not function with its normal quickness, for I gazed at the
prone figure for several seconds before I saw the blood that oozed out from under the tight green cap.
Regaining my power of action, I dragged him out of sight back of the big tree. For a few moments I
busied myself in an attempt to staunch the flow of blood. The wound was not a deep one. My
companion was more dazed than hurt. But what of the pursuers?
I took the weapon from his grasp and examined it hurriedly. It was not unlike the automatic pistol to
which I was accustomed, except that it apparently fired with a button instead of a trigger. I inserted
several fresh rounds of ammunition into its magazine from my companion's belt as rapidly as I could,
for I soon heard near us, the suppressed conversation of his pursuers.
There followed a series of explosions round aboutus, but none very close. They evidently had not
spotted our hiding place, and were firing at random.
I waited tensely, balancing the gun in my hand, to accustom myself to its weight and probable throw.
Then I saw a movement in the green foliage of a tree not far away, and the head and face of a man
appeared. like my companion, he was clad entirely in green, which made his figure difficult to
distinguish. But his face could be seen clearly, and had murder in it.
That decided me, I raised the gun and fired. My aim was bad, for there was no kick in the gun, as I
had expected; I hit the trunk of the tree several feet below him. It blew him from his perch like a
crumpled bit of paper, and he floated down to the ground, like some limp, dead thing, gently lowered
by an invisible hand. The tree, its trunk blown apart by the explosion, crashed down.
There followed another series of explosions around us. These guns we were using made no sound in
the firing, and my opponents were evidently as much at sea as to my position as I was to theirs. So I
made no attempt to reply to their fire, contenting myself with keeping a sharp Iodkout in their general
direction. And patience had its reward.
Very soon I saw a cautious movement in the top of another tree. Exposing myself as little as possible,
I aimed carefully at the tree trunk and fired again. A shriek followed the explosion. I heard the tree
crash down, then a groan.
There was silence for a while. Then I heard a faint sound of boughs swishing. I shot three times in its
direction, pressing the button as rapidly as I could. Branches crashed down where my shells had
 exploded, but there was no body.
Now I saw one of them. He was starting one of those amazing leaps from the bough of one tree to
another about forty feet away.
I threw up my gun impulsively and fired. By now I had gotten the feel of the weapon, and my aim was
good. I hit him. The "bullet" must have penetrated his hody and exploded, for one moment I saw him