"Mike Resnick - Hunting The Snark" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

Hunters read signs, and they listen to their trackers, but mostly they tend to
trust their instincts. We'd been on Dodgson IV less than five hours, and I was
already getting a bad feeling.

****

"I kind of expected you'd be bringing back a little something exotic for
dinner," remarked Jaxon Pollard when we returned to camp.

"Or perhaps a trophy," chimed in Ramona Desmond.

"I've got enough trophies, and you'll want to shoot your own."

"You don't sound like a very enthusiastic hunter," she said.

"You're paying to do the hunting," I replied. "My job is to back you up and
step in if things get out of hand. As far as I'm concerned, the ideal safari is
one on which I don't fire a single shot."

"Sounds good to me," said Marx. "What are we going after tomorrow?"

"I'm not sure."

"You're not sure?" he repeated. "What the hell were you doing all afternoon?"

"Scouting the area."

"This is like pulling teeth," complained Marx. "What did you find?"

"I think we may have found signs of Mrs. Desmond's Snark, for lack of a better
name."

Suddenly everyone was interested.

"A Snark?" said Ramona Desmond delightedly. "What did it look like?"

"I don't know," I replied. "It's bipedal, but I've no idea how many limbs it
has -- probably four. More than that is pretty rare in large animals anywhere
in the galaxy. Based on the depth of the tracks, Chajinka thinks it may go
anywhere from 250 to 400 pounds."

"That's not so much," said Marx. "I've hunted bigger."

"I'm not through," I said. "In a land filled with game, it seems to have scared
the other predators out of the area." I paused. "Well, actually, that could be
a misstatement."

"You mean it hasn't scared them off?" asked Ramona, now thoroughly confused.

"No, they're gone. But I called them _other_ predators, and I don't know for a