"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 029 - The Quest of Qui" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

She ain't normal, that dame. But what else can you expect from Qui?"

The man stopped and breathed a little deeper than usual, and the result was a gurgling explosion that shot
a crimson spray through his teeth and over the surrounding snow. From the number of blood spots frozen
in the snow, that must have happened before. It was more than a minute before he went on.

"Kettler, you can't find Qui again without the golden-haired dame."

He had said that before.

"I couldn't help her scramming, Kettler," he said. "Don't shoot me."

He said that much too calmly.

"Damn you, Kettler," he said. "You've shot me. You left me here to croak. I hope you never get a smell
of Qui again."

It was like listening to a story from fully conscious lips. But it was horrible, because of the dead quality of
the tone. The man was dying, but dying so slowly that he might go on thus for hours, for days if he got
proper treatment. He might not die, even.

"You won't find Qui, Kettler," said the man. "Don't like that, do you? Too bad, ain't it? Qui will go on like
it is for maybe another twelve hundred years. Sure it will, when you don't get back to do your killing.
Damn your killing, Kettler. I didn't like that part of the scheme."

Then, so suddenly that it surprised Johnny a little, the wounded man's mumbling became unintelligible. A
gout of scarlet had worked up in the fellow's throat, and it bubbled there, making the words inarticulate.

Johnny turned him over, and as one would drain out a drowning man, cleared the victim's bronchial
passages so more words could come.

"Newspapers full of stuff about that Viking ship," the man said. "Lot of guessing - nowhere near truth -
never connect it with Qui."

Johnny again tried to clear his throat, but it was no go, for the internal wounds must have opened. With
bandages and and opiate, Johnny went to work.

It was cold. He had some trouble keeping snow from blowing into the wounds while he bandaged them.
The wind in the rocks sounded like violins playing far away.

Out of the fiddling of the wind in the rocks, the moan of the airplane motor came so gradually that it was
quite loud before Johnny noticed it'

IT WAS a low-wing monoplane, fitted with pontoons for landing on water, and the pontoons in turn
equipped with ski like runners. The ship had two engines, fitted with shutter cowls, and their exhausts
must be carried through some cabinheating attachment, judging by their hissing quality. An all metal ship,
Johnny concluded.

The plane was coming down the wind, and Johnny, staring toward it, was bothered by snow which the
wind swept into his eyes. He stepped backward to get in the lee of a boulder only somewhat smaller than