"Vance, Jack - Planet of Adventure 01 - City of the Chasch" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

"It is a feeling I have."

"What would it be?"

"Pnumekin, who travel unseen. Or it might be nighthounds."

"Pnumekin: they are men, are they not?"

"Men in a sense. They are the spies, the couriers of the Pnume. Some say that tunnels run beneath the steppe, with secret entrance traps, perhaps under that very bush!"

Reith examined the bush toward which Traz had directed his attention, but it seemed ordinary enough. "Would they harm us?"

"Not unless the Pnume wanted us dead. Who knows what the Pnume want? ... More likely the night-hounds are out early."

Reith brought forth his scanscope. He searched the steppe, but discovered nothing.

"Tonight," said Traz, "we had best build a fire."

The sun sank in a sad display of purple and mauve and brown. Traz and Reith collected a pile of brush and set a fire.

Traz's instinct had been accurate. As dusk deepened to dark a soft wailing sounded to the east, to be answered by a cry to the north and another to the south. Traz cocked his catapult. "They're not afraid of fire," he told Reith. "But they avoid the light, from cleverness ... Some say they are a kind of animal Pnume."

The night-hounds surrounded them, moving just beyond range of the firelight, showing as dark shapes, with an occasional flash of lambent white eye-discs.

Traz kept his catapult ready. Reith brought forth his gun and his energy cell. The first fired tiny explosive needles, and was accurate to a distance of fifty yards. The cell was a multiple-purpose device. At one end a crystal emitted either a beam or a flood of light at the touch of a switch. A socket allowed the recharging of the scanscope and the transcom. At the other end a trigger released a gush of raw energy, but seriously depleted the energy available for future use, and Reith regarded the energy cell as an emergency weapon only.

With night-hounds circling the fire he kept both weapons ready, determined not to waste a charge unless it was absolutely necessary. A shape came close; Traz fired his catapult. The bolt struck home; the black shape bounded high, giving a contralto call of woe.

Traz re-cocked the catapult, and put more brush on the fire. The shapes moved uneasily, then began to run in circles.

Traz said gloomily, "Soon they will lunge. We are as good as dead. A troop of six men can hold off night-hounds; five men are almost always killed."

Reith reluctantly took up his energy-cell. He waited. Closer, in from the shadows danced and spun the night-hounds. Reith aimed, pulled the trigger, turned the beam halfway around the circle. The surviving night-hounds screamed in horror. Reith stepped around the fire to complete the job, but the night-hounds were gone and presently could be heard grieving in the distance.

Traz and Reith took turns sleeping. Each thought he kept sharp lookout, but in the morning, when they went to look for corpses, all had been dragged away. "Crafty creatures!" said Traz in a marveling voice. "Some say they talk to the Pnume, and report all the events of the steppe."

"What then? Do the Pnume act on the information?"

Traz shrugged doubtfully. "When something terrible happens it is safe to assume that the Pnume have been at work."

Reith looked all around, wondering where Pnume or Pnumekin, or even night-hounds, could hide. In all directions lay the open steppe, dim in the sepia dawn gloom.

For breakfast they ate pilgrim pod and drank watak sap. Then once more they began their march northwest.

Late in the afternoon they saw ahead an extensive tumble of gray rubble which Traz identified as a ruined city, where safety from the night-hounds could be had at the risk of encountering bandits, Green Chasch or Phung. At Reith's question, Traz described these latter: a weird solitary species similar to the Pnume, only larger and characterized by an insane craft which made them terrible even to the Green Chasch.

As they approached the ruins Traz told gloomy tales of the Phung and their macabre habits. "Still, the ruins may be empty. We must approach with caution."

"Who built these old cities?" asked Reith.