"E. C. Tubb - Dumarest 08 - Veruchia" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tubb E. C)

Veruchia
#8 in the Dumarest series
E.C. Tubb

Chapter One


There was something cathedral-like about the museum so that visitors walked softly
and spoke in little more than whispers, awed by the nobility of the building. It was of
natural stone, the high, vaulted roofs murmuring with distant echoes, the vast
chambers flanked with galleries and long windows of brightly stained glass. Even the
attendants standing unobtrusively beside carved pillars seemed more like exhibits
than men: creatures subjected to the taxidermist's art, uniformed simulacra set to
guard fabulous treasures. It would have been easy to have forgotten their presence.

Dumarest did not forget. From the moment he had entered the museum he had been
conscious of their watchful eyes. They followed him now as he walked with a dozen
others, his neutral gray in strong contrast to their city finery, a stranger and therefore
an object of interest. Even guards grew bored.

"A phendrat." The voice of the guide rose above the sussuration of halting feet. He
pointed upwards to where a winged and spined creature hung suspended on invisible
wires. Even in death it radiated a vicious ferocity.

The treatment which had preserved it had not detracted from the glitter of its scales.

"The last of its species was destroyed over three centuries ago in the Tamar Hills. It
was a carnivore and the largest insect ever known on this world: the result,
apparently, of wild mutation. Its life cycle followed a standard pattern, the female
sought but a suitable host and buried her eggs in the living flesh. See the sting? The
venom paralyzed the selected creature which could do nothing as it was eaten alive
by the hatching young. Note the long proboscis, the mandibles and the hooked legs.
This is the sound of a phendrat in flight."

The guide touched a button set in a pillar and a thin, spiteful drone filled the air. A
matron cleared her throat as it died away.

"Are you certain there are none left?"
"Positive, madam."

"I've a farm in the Tamar Hills. If I thought those things were still around I'd sell it
tomorrow."

"You have nothing to fear, madam, I assure you." The guide moved on. "A krish,"
he said, halting beside a ten-foot display case filled with a mass of convoluted
spines. "This one was found at the bottom of the Ashurian Sea. If you will study it
you will see that the body-shell is almost covered with bright stones. Sometimes they
are found so thickly laden that true mobility is lost. The stones are not natural to the
creature and, as yet, we cannot determine whether or not the adornment is deliberate
or accidental. By that I mean there is a possibility that the creature actually chooses