"A. E. Van Vogt - The Rat & the Snake & Other Stories" - читать интересную книгу автора (Van Vogt A E)

Crash! A gate slammed shut behind him as he emerged.
He was in a vast room, larger than anything he had ever seen. Yet it
was vaguely familiar. Except for its size it resembled the room in which
he kept his python.
On the floor in front of him, an object that he had noticed and
regarded as some sort of a leathery rug, thicker than he was tall, stirred
and moved toward him.
Realization came suddenly, horrendously.
He was the size of a rat. This was the python slithering across the
floor with distended jaws.
Mad squealing as Mark Gray experienced the ultimate thrill of the
strange method by which he had enjoyed life for so many years ...
Experienced it this one and only time from the viewpoint of the rat.
 A.E. Van Vogt

ERSATZ ETERNAL

Grayson removed the irons from the other's wrists and legs. "Hart!"
he said sharply.
The young man on the cot did not stir. Grayson hesitated and then
deliberately kicked the man. "Damn you, Hart, listen to me! I'm releasing
you - just in case I don't come back "
John Hart neither opened his eyes nor showed any awareness of the
blow he had received. He lay inert; and the only evidence of life in him
was that he was limp, not rigid. There was almost no color in his cheeks.
His black hair was damp and stringy.
Grayson said earnestly, "Hart, I'm going out to look for Malkins.
Remember, he left four days ago, intending only to be gone twenty-four
hours."
When there was no response, the older man started to turn away, but
he hesitated and said, "Hart, if I don't come back, you must realize where
we are, This is a new planet, understand. We've never been here before.
Our ship was wrecked, and the three of us came down in a lifeboat, and
what we need is fuel. That's what Malkins went out to look for, and now
I'm going out to look for Malkins."
The figure on the cot remained blank. And Grayson walked reluctantly
out the door and off toward the hills. He had no particular hope.
Three men were down on a planet God-only-knew-where - and one ofthose
man was violently insane.
As he walked along, he glanced around him in occasional puzzlement.
The scenery was very earthlike: trees, shrubs, grass, and distant
mountains misted by blue haze. It was still a littie odd that when they
had landed Malkins and he had had the distinct impression that they were
coming down onto a barren world without atmosphere and without life.
A soft breeze touched his cheeks. The scent of flowers was in the
air. He saw birds flitting among the trees, and once he heard a song that
was startingly like that of a meadow lark.
He walked all day and saw no sign of Malkins. Nor was there any
habitation to indicate that the planet had intelligent life. Just before
dusk he heard a woman calling his name.