"Emil Petaja - Tramontane" - читать интересную книгу автора (Petaja Emil)

The silver-steel blade had an ancient look to it and that animal-bone
handle, blackened by eons, was archaic beyond belief. It spoke of primitive
ways on a primitive world.

When he saw what had happened Kullervo Kasi loosed a great cry. It
ululated from the depths of an anguished soul. Triangulated between the
rock shard and the ground the knife blade had snapped off clean at the
bony hilt.

тАЬDamn thing was no good anyway,тАЭ Pot rationalized. тАЬToo old.тАЭ Still, he
was not inclined to be happy about it and he took out his anger on
Kullervo. тАЬOn your feet, crud! We got a job to do!тАЭ

Kullervo KasiтАЩs pale deep-set eyes were rooted on the broken blade. He
began to moan. Nothing else seemed to matter. He didnтАЩt hear Pot or feel
his boot nudge. He picked up the handle and the blade and held them
close to him, crooning hard gritty sobs of intolerable grief for the loss of
his one and only treasure, his one and only friend. He was alone. Alone.
Alone. His secret thing, his pukko, was broken and useless.

тАЬGet up!тАЭ Pot commanded. The others waited, grumbling. The big sun
was beginning to blast. They were supposed to have finished by now.

Kullervo wailed his grief, rocking back and forth. Then, at PotтАЩs volley of
curses, his wide face turned up ominously. He rocked up on his feet,
making raw animal sounds deep in his throat. Then he began to talk. The
first words anyone within memory had ever heard him say. It wasnтАЩt
space-idiom. No. It was a roaring torrent of biting alien words like rocks
being crushed by raging tides. A language forgotten for millennia, spewed
up out of Kullervo KasiтАЩs cells in a storm because of what had happened to
his pukko.

Pot rolled back under the wave of harsh noises. Al called out, тАЬCтАЩmon
back here! HeтАЩs gone ape! Stand away! IтАЩll cut the sucker down!тАЭ

Pot wrenched his eyes away from what had always seemed a docile
beast of burden, a butt for every manтАЩs errant hostility, and what had
suddenly about-faced into a thunderstorm of unbridled fury. Then all
three of them started blasting.

Kullervo turned on them with a feral snarl. Then, with a doleful croak
like a crowтАЩs caw, he ran to the brink of the fissure and jumped.

They gaped cautiously over the edge at the swirling cloud masses of
demoniac color and frightful stink. Not even a sigh came back up to them
as the ugly unwanted lump of life-tissue vanished into the raw planetary
wound.