"Jack Vance - Tschai 3 - The DirDir" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

Reith searched the empty sky, the bleak landscape. "They might conceivably become discouraged."


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"Never! When thwarted they grow excited, furious with zeal."

"We're not far from the mountains. We can hide in the shadow of the boulders, or in one of the
ravines."

An hour's travel brought them under the crumbling basalt palisade. Traz suddenly halted,
sniffed the air. Reith could smell nothing, but long since had learned to defer to Traz's
perceptions.

"Phung* droppings," said Traz. "About two days old."

Reith nervously checked the availability of his handgun. Eight explosive pellets remained. When
these were gone the gun became useless. It might be, thought Reith, that his luck was running out.
He asked Traz, "Is it likely to be close at hand?"

Traz shrugged. "The Phung are mad things. For all I know, one stands behind that boulder."

Reith and Anacho looked uneasily about. Anacho finally said, "Our first concern must be the
Dirdir. The critical period has begun. They will have traced us aboard the motor-wagon; they can
easily follow us to Siadz. Still, we are not completely without advantage, especially if they lack
game-finding instruments."

"What instruments are these?" asked Reith.

"Detectors of human odor or heat radiation. Some trace footprints by residual warmth, others
observe exhalations of carbon dioxide and locate a man from a distance of five miles."

"And when they catch their game?"

"The Dirdir are conservative. They do not recognize change," said Anacho. "They need not hunt
but are driven by inner forces. They consider themselves beasts of prey, and impose no restraint
upon themselves."

"In other words," said Traz, "they will eat us."

Reith was gloomily silent. At last he said, "Well, we must not be captured."

"As Zarfo the Lokhar said, 'Death comes but once.' "

Traz pointed. "Notice the break into the palisade. If ever a road existed, there it must go."

Across barren hummocks of compacted gray soil, around tangles of thorn and tumbled beds of