"Reed-TheSingingMarine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Kit)

He does not like the looks of the first animal. Its eyes are big enough but when
he says, "Nice doggy," it stirs in a tremendous effort to please him, and
scratches up a storm of pennies that lands at his feet like so much gravel. Pick
up that junk and I won't have any room in my suit for the real thing. Thus he
throws out his first set of instructions. "Nothing doing," he says, and goes on
to the next. The eyes are even huger, but in its attempt to win his attention
the next animal scratches up a shower of dollar bills, shredded by sharp
toenails and worthless as confetti.

The third dog does nothing. Sitting on its chest of treasure it regards him with
eyes bigger and more brilliant than anybody's attempts to describe them. The
effect is of lemon neon.

It is like looking into the eye of the beholder.

Without knowing what he means, the Marine says, "Then you know."

Although the dog makes no sound, the singing Marine takes its meaning:
Everything.

Flowing like velvet, the creature jumps off the chest, fixing him with its
intense yellow glare. Although the dog is kept in the little cavern by a shield
he can't see, the singing Marine climbs up on the ledge and enters easily. Now
that they are in the same space he knows that if it wants to, the animal can
destroy him.

"I didn't want to come back from the dead, you know." He thinks about his
platoon. "You know being dead is easier."

The silence is profound. The Marine stands with his arms at his sides, waiting.
There is a stir as if of air masses colliding. Huge and silent, the dog surges
into the space between them. Still he does not move. He does not move even when
the massive brute pads the last two steps and presses its bearlike head against
him. Startled by the warmth, the weight, the singing Marine feels everything bad
rush out of him: the violent death and burial, the strange reincarnation that
finds him both victim and murderer, song and singer, still in the thrall of the
linden tree and the spirits that surround it. The great dog's jaws are wide; its
mouth is a fiery chasm, but he doesn't shrink from it.

When you have been dead and buried, many things worry you, but nothing frightens
you.

"Stay," he says, and without caring whether it attacks him, he opens the chest.
On top he finds the object in question -- fire-starter, she explained, an
antique tinderbox, looking crude and insufficient in its bed of thousand dollar
bills. Something glitters -- diamonds scattered among the bills as if by some
supremely casual hand. He picks up the tinderbox.

"This is what she wants," he says to the dog. The neon eyes won't let him lie;