"Tom Purdom - The Tree Lord of Imeten" - читать интересную книгу автора (Purdom Tom)

She hesitated. "I can't stay here. When I went in to talk to themтАФto them
I'm with you now. If I stay here, they'll probably kill me, too."
"Did you think about that before you talked to them?"
"I couldn't let you die!"
He scowled. Why not?
He couldn't say it. She made his uncontrolled savagery seem shameful.
She had risked her own life to get him out of this. It had probably never
even occurred to her he might not want to live.
"I know how you feel," she said. "I think I feel the same way. Walt meant
as much to me as he meant to you. I'd like to crawl off someplace and
never see another human face. But we've got to go on living. What you're
doing isn't right. You don't believe in it yourself."
He crawled to the other end of the tractor. He checked the ground briefly
and then he crawled back.
"What's Emile going to do?" he asked. "Is he going to stay on the
plateau?"
She caught her breath. "I don't know. They haven't said anything."
 "Is he in charge or Ben?"
"He seems to be in charge."
"That won't last long. What did they say they'd give us?"
"They said they'd give us whatever we need."
"Rifles?"
She hesitated. "I didn't ask them."
"Cheese fungus? Seeds? Rabbits? Knives?"
"Emil said they'd give us anything we need to survive."
"A cart?"
"Can we use one in the forest?"
"If we can't, we'll abandon it." he thought. Through his anger and grief old
emotions were beginning to assert themselves. When his mother and sister
had died, his rage eventually had been transformed into an attitude which
had served many men before him. You couldn't defeat death by shaking
your fist at it, or by pretending it wasn't real or that it didn't matterтАФor by
lying down and letting it kill you. You defeated death by living as long as you
could, and by doing things death couldn't destroy. "We'll need an anti-grav
platform to get down the cliff. Tell Emile they can send a girl with us to get
the platform back up. If he won't give it to usтАФtell him I'll stay here. I mean
that. Don't let him think I don't. If you don't get the platform, the deal's off."
"You won't try climbing down the east face of the cliff?
"And have them shoot us from a platform? They'll still probably come
after us. I'd rather go up in the mountains, but in the forest we'll have some
cover over us."
"They really want us to go, Harold. You haven't seen them. They've had
as much as they can stomach."
"We have to assume the worst. This is no time to be trusting." He wiped
the sweat off his brow. "Let me think. ClothesтАж water purifiersтАж Ask for
some nails."
He was beginning to feel hungry and tired. It would be morning before
they could rest and he knew he had probably eaten his last hot meal for
many days.
Why hadn't she left him alone? They'd be lucky if they survived a month.