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

Traz shrugged. "No one knows. Perhaps the Old Chasch; perhaps the Blue Chasch. Perhaps the Gray Men, though no one really believes this."

Reith sorted over what he knew of the Tschai races and their human associates. There were Dirdir and Dirdirmen; Old Chasch, Green Chasch, Blue Chasch and Chaschmen; Pnume and the human-derived Pnumekin; the yellow marsh-men, the various tribes of nomads, the fabulous "Golds," and now the "Gray Men."

"There are Wankh and Wankhmen as well," said Traz. "On the other side of Tschai."

"What brought all these races to Tschai?" Reith asked-a rhetorical question, for he knew that Traz would have no answer; and Traz gave only a shrug in reply.

They came to mounds of silted-over rubble, slabs of tip-tilted concrete, shards of glass: the outskirts of the city.

Traz stopped short, listened, craned his neck uneasily, brought his catapult to the ready. Reith, looking about, could see nothing threatening; slowly they moved on, into the heart of the ruins. The old structures, once lofty halls and grand palaces, were toppled, decayed, with only a few white pillars, posts, pedestals lifting into the dark Tschai sky. Between were platforms and piazzas of wind-scoured stone and concrete.

In the central plaza a fountain bubbled up from an underground spring or aquifer. Traz approached with great circumspection. "How can there fail to be Phung?" he muttered. "Even now-" and he scrutinized the tumbled masonry around the plaza with great care. Reith tasted the water, then drank. Traz, however, hung back. "A Phung has been here."

Reith could see no evidence of the fact. "How do you know?"

Traz gave a half-diffident shrug, reluctant to expatiate upon a matter so obvious. His attention was diverted to another more urgent matter; he looked apprehensively around the sky, sensing something below the threshold of Reith's perceptions. Suddenly he pointed. "The Dirdir boat!" They took shelter under an overhanging slab of concrete; a moment later the flyer skimmed so close above that they could hear the swish of air from the repulsors.

The flyer swung in a great circle, returned to hover over the plaza at a height of two hundred yards.

"Strange," whispered Traz. "It's almost as if they know we're here."

"They may be searching the ground with an infrared screen," whispered Reith. "On Earth we can track a man by the warmth of his footprints."

The flyer floated off to the west, then gathered speed and disappeared. Traz and Reith went back out upon the plaza. Reith drank more water, relishing the cold clarity after three days of watak sap. Traz preferred to hunt the large roach-like insects which lived among the rubble. These he skinned with a quick jerk of the fingers and ate with relish. Reith was not sufficiently hungry to join him.

The sun sank behind broken columns and shattered arches; a peach-colored haze hung over the steppe which Traz thought to be a portent of changing weather. For fear of rain, Reith wished to take shelter under a slab, but Traz would not hear of it. "The Phung! They would sniff us out!" He selected a pedestal rising thirty feet above a crumbled staircase as a secure place to pass the night. Reith looked glumly at a bank of clouds coming up from the south but made no further protest. The two carried up armloads of twigs and fronds for a bed.

The sun sank; the ancient city became dim. Into the plaza wandered a man, reeling with fatigue. He rushed to the fountain and drank greedily.

Reith brought out his scanscope. The man was tall, slender, with long legs and arms, a long sallow head quite bald, round eyes, a small button nose, minute ears. He wore the tatters of a once-elegant garment of pink and blue and black; on his head was an extravagant confection of pink puffs and black ribbons. "Dirdirman," whispered Traz, and bringing forth his catapult, took aim.

"Wait!" protested Reith. "What do you do?"

"Kill him, of course."

"He is not harming us! Why not give the poor devil his life?"

"He only lacks the opportunity," grumbled Traz, but he put aside the catapult. The Dirdirman, turning away from the fountain, looked carefully around the plaza.

"He seems to be lost," muttered Reith. "I wonder if the Dirdir boat was seeking him. Could he be a fugitive?"

Traz shrugged. "Perhaps; who knows?"

The Dirdirman came wearily across the plaza and took shelter only a few yards from the foot of the pedestal, where he wrapped himself in his tattered garments and bedded himself down. Traz grumbled under his breath and lay back into the twigs and seemed to go instantly to sleep. Reith looked out across the old city and mused upon his extraordinary destiny ... Az appeared in the east, glowing pale pink through the haze to send a strange light along the ancient avenues. The vista was one of eerie fascination: a scene unreal, the stuff of strange dreams. Now Braz lifted into the sky; the broken columns and toppled structures cast double shadows. One particular shape at the end of an avenue resembled a brooding statue. Reith wondered why he had not noticed it previously. It was a gaunt-man-shaped figure seven or eight feet tall, legs somewhat apart, head bowed as if in intense concentration, one hand under the chin, the other behind the back. The head was covered by a soft hat with a drooping brim; a cloak hung from the shoulders; the legs seemed encased in boots. Reith looked more intently. A statue? Why did it not move?

Reith brought forth his scanscope. The creature's visage was in dark shadow; but, adjusting focus, zoom and gain, Reith was able to glimpse a long, gaunt countenance. The gnarled halfhuman, half-insect features were set in a frozen grimace; as Reith watched, the mouth-parts worked slowly, moving in and out ... The creature moved, taking a single long stealthy step forward, again freezing into position. It held a long arm aloft in a minatory gesture, for no purpose comprehensible to Reith. Traz had awakened; he followed Reith's gaze. "Phung!"

The creature whirled about as if it had heard the sound and danced two great strides to the side.