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

metal and hid the pallid blotch of his face. The glow of the lights played past
him, upon the trapdoor, which he saw to be locked by four twist-latches
controlled from above. The lights, veering away, searched the sides of the
shaft. The folk below stood in puzzled consultation. After a final inspection of
the cavern, a last flicker of light up the shaft, they returned the way they had
come, flashing their lights from side to side.
Reith huddled high in the dark, wondering whether he might not still be
dreaming. But the sad desolate circumstances were real enough. He was trapped.
He could not raise the door above him; it might not be opened again for weeks.
Unthinkable to crouch bat-like, waiting. For better or worse, Reith made up his
mind. He looked down the passage; the lights, bobbing will-o'-the-wisps, were
already far and dim. He slid down the rope and set off in pursuit, running with
long gliding steps. He had a single notion, a desperate hope rather than a plan:
to isolate one of the dark figures and somehow force him to lead the way to the
surface. Above burned the first of the dim blue buttons, casting a glow dimmer
than moonlight, but sufficient to show a way winding between rock buttresses
advancing alternately from either side.
Reith presently caught up with the four, who moved slowly, investigating the
passage to either side in a hesitant, perplexed fashion. Reith began to feel an
insane exhilaration, as if he were already dead and invulnerable. He thought to
pick up a pebble and toss it at the dark figures ... Hysteria! The notion
instantly sobered him. If he wanted to survive he must take a grip on himself.
The four moved with uneasy deliberation, whispering and muttering among
themselves. Dodging from one pocket of shadow to another Reith approached as
closely as he dared, to be ready in case one should detach himself. Except for a
fleeting glimpse in the dungeons at Pera, he had never seen a Pnume. These, from
what Reith could observe of their posture and gait, seemed human.
The passage opened into a cavern with almost purposeful roughnessor perhaps
the rudeness concealed a delicacy beyond Reith's understanding, as in the case
of a shoulder of quartz thrusting forth to display a coruscation of pyrite
crystals.
The area seemed to be a junction, a node, a place of importance, with three
other passages leading away. An area at the center had been floored with smooth
stone slabs; light somewhat stronger than that in the cavern issued from
luminous grains in the overhead rock.
A fifth individual stood to the side; like the others he wore a black cloak
and wide-brimmed black hat. Reith, flat as a cockroach, slid forward into a
pocket of dense shadow close by the chamber. The fifth individual was also a
Pnumekin; Reith could see his long visage, dismal, white and bleak. For an
interval he took no notice of the first four and they appeared not to see him, a
curious ritual of mutual disregard which aroused Reith's interest.
Gradually the five seemed to wander together, none looking directly at the
others.
There came a hushed murmur of voices. Reith strained to listen. They spoke
the universal tongue of Tschai; so much he could understand from the
intonations. The four reported the circumstances attendant upon finding the
empty sack; the fifth, an official or monitor, made the smallest possible