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

go crazy. Sobbing and hissing, he took command of himself. He searched his
jacket, to no avail: no metal, no cutting edge. He clenched his mind, forced
himself to think. The gong was a signal; someone or something had been summoned.
He groped around the sack, hoping to find a break. No success. He needed metal,
sharpness, a blade, an edge! From head to toe he took stock. His belt! With vast
difficulty he pulled it loose, and used the sharp pin on the buckle to score the
fabric. He achieved a tear; thrusting and straining he ripped the material and
finally thrust forth his head and shoulders. Never in his life had he known such
exultation! If he died within the moment, at least he had defeated the sack!
Conceivably he might score other victories. He looked along a rude, rough
cavern dimly illuminated by a few blue-white buttons of light. The floor almost
brushed the bottom of the bag; Reith recalled the descent and final jerk with a
qualm. He heaved himself out of the sack, to stand trembling with cramp and
fatigue. Listening to dead underground silence, he thought to hear a far sound.
Something, someone, was astir.
Above him the cavern rose in a chimney, the rope merging with the darkness.
Somewhere up there must be an opening into the outer world-but how far? In the
bag he had swung with a cycle of ten or twelve seconds, which by rough
calculation gave a figure of considerably more than a hundred feet.
Reith looked down the cavern and listened. Someone would be coming in answer
to the gong. He looked up the rope. At the top was the outer world. He took hold
of the rope, started to climb. Up he went, into the dark, heaving and clinging:
up, up, up. The sack and the cavern became part of a lost world; he was
enveloped in darkness.
His hands burned; his shoulders grew warm and weak; then he reached the top
of the rope. Groping, fumbling, he discovered that it passed through a slot in a
metal plate, which rested upon a pair of heavy metal beams. The plate seemed a
kind of trapdoor, which clearly could not be opened while his weight hung on the
rope ... His strength was failing. He wrapped the rope around his legs and
reached out with an arm. To one side he felt a metal shelf; it was the web of
the beam supporting the trapdoor, a foot or more wide. He rested a moment-time
was growing short, then lurched out with his leg, and tried to heave himself


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across. For a sickening instant he felt himself falling. He strained
desperately; with his heart thumping he dragged himself across to the web of the
beam. Here, sick and miserable, he lay panting.
A minute passed, hardly long enough for the rope to become still. Below four
bobbing lights approached. Reith balanced himself and heaved up at the metal
plate. It was solid and heavy; he might as well have been shoving at the
mountainside. Once again! He thrust with all his might, without the slightest
effect. The lights were below, carried by four dark shapes. Reith pressed back
against the vertical section of the beam.
The four below moved slowly in eerie silence, like creatures underwater. They
went to examine the sack and found it empty. Reith could hear whispers and
mutters. They looked all around, the lights blinking and flickering. By some
kind of mutual impulse all stared up. Reith pressed himself flat against the