"Eric Frank Russel - The Ultimate Invader" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russell Eric Frank)

ship's lock opened and a thing came out.
As a sample of unfamiliar life he was neither big nor fear-some. A biped with two
arms, a pinkish face and close-fitting clothes, he was no taller than any of the
onlookers and not more than one-third the weight. A peculiar creature in no way
redoubtable. In fact he looked soft. One could jump on him with all four feet and
squash him.
Nevertheless one could not hold him entirely in contempt. There were aspects that
gave one to pause and think. In the first place, he was carrying no visible weapons
and, more-over, doing it with the subtle assurance of one who has reason to view
guns as so much useless lumber. In the second place, he was mooching airily around
the ship, hands in pockets, inspecting the scarred shell for all the world as if this
landing marked a boring call on tiresome relatives. Most of the time he had his back
to the ring of troops, magnificently indifferent to whether or not anyone chose to
blow him apart.
Apparently satisfied with his survey of the vessel, he sud-denly turned and walked
straight toward the hidden watchers. The ship's lock remained wide open in a
manner suggesting either criminal carelessness or supreme confidence, more
prob-ably the latter. Completely at peace with a world in the midst of war, he ambled
directly toward a section of guards, bring-ing the need for initiative nearer and nearer,
making themsweat with anxiety and creating such a panic that they forgot to itch.
Rounding a rock, he came face to face with Yadiz, a com-mon trooper
momentarily paralyzed by sheer lack of an order to go forward, go backward, shoot
the alien, shoot himself, or do something. He looked casually at Yadiz as if different
life-forms in radically different shapes were more common than pebbles. Yadiz
became so embarrassed by his own futility that he swapped his gun from hand to
hand and back again.
"Surely it's not that heavy, " remarked the alien with com-plete and surprising
fluency. He eyed the gun and sniffed.
Yadiz dropped the gun which promptly went off with an ear-splitting crash and a
piece of rock flew into shards and something whined shrilly into the sky. The alien
turned and followed the whine with his eyes until finally it died out.
Then he said to Yadiz, "Wasn't that rather silly?"
There was no need to answer. It was a conclusion Yadiz already had reached
about one second before the bang. He picked up the gun with a foot-hand,
transferred it to a real hand, found it upside-down, turned it right way up, got the
strap tangled around his fist, had to reverse it to get the limb free, turned it right way
up again.
Some sort of answer seemed to be necessary but for the life of him Yadiz could
not conceive one that was wholly satis-factory. Struck dumb, he posed there holding
his weapon by the muzzle and at arm's length, like one who has recklessly grabbed a
mamba and dare not let go. In all his years as a trooper, of which there were more
than several, he couldn't recall a time when possession of a firearm had proved such
a handicap. He was still searching in vain for a verbal means of salvaging his
self-respect when another trooper arrived to break the spell.
A little breathless with haste, the newcomer looked askance at the biped, said to
Yadiz, "Who gave you orders to shoot?"
"What business is it of yours?" asked the biped, coldly dis-approving. "It's his
own gun, isn't it?"
This interjection took the arrival' aback. He had not ex-pected another life-form to
speak with the fluency of a native, much less treat this matter of wasting ammunition