"Jack Vance - Tschai 4 - The Pnume" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

any course of action was risky, but the sure way to disaster was inaction. Reith
reached out and worked at the rock as he had seen the Pnumekin do. The door fell
aside. Reith drew back, ready for anything. He looked into a chamber thirty feet
in diameter: a conference room, or so Reith deduced from the round central
table, the benches, the shelves and cabinets.
He stepped through the opening and the door closed behind him. He looked
around the chamber. Light-grains powdered the ceiling; the walls had been
meticulously chipped and ground to enhance the crystalline structure of the
rock. To the right an arched corridor, plastered in white, led away; to the left
were shelves, cabinets, a closet.
From the corridor came a dull staccato knocking, a sound which carried a
message of urgency. Reith, already as taut as a burglar, looked around in a
panic for a place to hide. He ran to the closet, slid the door ajar, pushed
aside the black cloaks hanging from hooks, and squeezed within. The cloaks and


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the black hats at the back gave off a musty odor. Reith's stomach gave a jerk.
He huddled back and slid the door shut. Putting his eye to a crack, he looked
out into the room.
Time stood still. Reith's stomach began to jerk with tension. The Pnumekin
monitor returned to the chamber, to stand as if in deep thought. The queer
wide-brimmed hat shadowed his austere features, which, Reith noted, were almost
classically regular. Reith thought of the other man-composites of Tschai, all
more or less mutated toward their host-race: the Dirdirmen-sinister absurdities;
the stupid and brutish Chaschmen; the venal overcivilized Wankhmen. The
essential humanity of all these, except perhaps in the case of the Dirdirman
Immaculates, remained intact. The Pnumekin, on the other hand, had undergone no
perceptible physical evolvement, but their psyches had altered; they seemed as
remote as specters.
The creature across the room-Reith could not think of him as a man, stood
quiet without a twitch to his features, just inconveniently too distant for a
lurch and a lunge out of the closet.
Reith began to feel cramped. He shifted his position, producing a small
sound. In a cold sweat he pressed his eye to the crack. The Pnumekin stood
absorbed in reverie. Reith willed him to approach, urged him closer, closer,
closer ... A thought came to disturb him: suppose the creature refused to heed a
threat against his life? Perhaps it lacked the ability to feel fear ... The
portal swung ajar; another Pnumekin entered: one of the passage-tenders. The two
looked aside, ignoring each other. The newcomer spoke in a soft voice, as if
musing aloud: "The delivery cannot be found. The passage and shaft have been
scrutinized."
The tunnel monitor made no response. Silence, of an eerie dream-like quality,
ensued.
The passage-tender spoke again. "He could not have passed us. Delivery was
not made, or else he escaped by an adit unknown to us. These are the alternative
possibilities."
The monitor spoke. "The information is noted. Transit control should be