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

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capricious cruelty; you pour my money into an insane scheme; you ignore every
protest, every plea of moderation! Why? I ask myself, why? Why? If it were not
all so preposterous, I could indeed believe you a man of another world."
"You still haven't told me what the Gzhindra want," said Reith.
With vast dignity Woudiver rose to his feet; the chain from the iron collar
swung and jangled. "You had best take up this matter with the Gzhindra
themselves."
He went to his table and after a final cryptic glance toward Reith took up
his tatting.



CHAPTER TWO
REITH TWITCHED AND trembled in a nightmare. He dreamt that he lay on his
usual couch in Woudiver's old office. The room was pervaded by a curious
yellow-green glow. Woudiver stood across the room chatting with a pair of
motionless men in black capes and broad-brimmed black hats. Reith strained to
move, but his muscles were limp. The yellow-green light waxed and waned;
Woudiver was now frosted with an uncanny silver-blue incandescence. The typical
nightmare of helplessness and futility, thought Reith. He made desperate efforts
to awake but only started a clammy sweat.
Woudiver and the Gzhindra gazed down at him. Woudiver surprisingly wore his
iron collar, but the chain had been broken or melted a foot from his neck. He
seemed complacent and unconcerned: the Woudiver of old. The Gzhindra showed no
expression other than intentness. Their features were long, narrow and very
regular; their skin, pallid ivory, shone with the luster of silk. One carried a
folded cloth; the other stood with hands behind his back.
Woudiver suddenly loomed enormous. He called out: "Adam Reith, Adam Reith:
where is your home?"
Reith struggled against his impotence. A weird and desolate dream, one that
he would long remember. "The planet Earth," he croaked. "The planet Earth."
Woudiver's face expanded and contracted. "Are other Earthmen on Tschai?"
"Yes."
The Gzhindra jerked forward; Woudiver called in a horn-like voice: "Where?
Where are the Earthmen?"
"All men are Earthmen."
Woudiver stood back, mouth drooping in saturnine disgust. "You were born on
the planet Earth."
"Yes."
Woudiver floated back in triumph. He gestured largely to the Gzhindra. "A
rarity, a nonesuch!"
"We will take him." The Gzhindra unfolded the cloth, which Reith, to his
helpless horror, saw to be a sack. Without ceremony the Gzhindra pulled it up
over his legs, tucked him within until only his head protruded. Then, with
astonishing ease, one of the Gzhindra threw the sack over his back, while the