"Stanley G. Weinbaum - Proteus Island" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weinbaum Stanley G)

"We'll call you Lilith," he said thoughtfully. The name fitted her wild, perfect features and her flame-hued
eyes. Lilith, the mysterious being whom Adam found before him in Paradise, before Eve was created.
"Lilith," he repeated. "AlanтАФLilith. See?"

She echoed the sounds and the gesture. Without question she accepted the name he had given her, and
that she understood the sound as a name was evident by her response to it. For when he uttered it a few
minutes flater, her amber eyes flashed instantly to his face and reaained in a silent question.

Carver laughed and resumed his puzzled thoughts. Reflectively, he produced his pipe and packed it, then
struck a match and lighted it. He was startled by a low cry from the girl Lilith, and looked up to see her
extended hand. For a moment he failed to perceive what she sought, and then her fingers closed around
the hissing stem of the match! She had tried to seize the flame as one takes a fluttering bit of cloth.

She screamed in pain and fright. At once the pack of nondescripts appeared at the edge of the forest,
voicing their howls of anger, and Carver whirled again to meet them. But again Lilith, recovering from the
surprise of the burn, halted the pack with her voice, and sent them slinking away into the shadows. She
sucked her scorched Singers and turned widened eyes to his face. He realized with a start of disbelief
that the girl did not comprehend fire!

There was a bottle of alcohol in the box of equipment; he produced it and, taking Lilith's hand, bound a
moistened strip of handkerchief about her two blistered fingers, though he knew well enough that alcohol
was a poor remedy for burns. He applied the disinfectant to the bullet graze on her knee; she moaned
softly at the sting, then smiled as it lessened, while her strange amber eyes followed fixedly the puffs of
smoke from his pipe, and her nostrils quivered to the pungent tobacco odor.

"Now what," queried Carver, smoking reflectively, "am I going to do with you?"

Lilith had apparently no suggestion. She simply continued her wide-eyed regard.

"At least," he resumed, "you ought to know what's good to eat on this crazy island. You do eat, don't
you?" He pantomimed the act.
The girl understood instantly. She rose, stepped to the spot where the body of the doglike cat lay, and
seemed for an instant to sniff its scent. Then she removed the wooden knife from her girdle, placed one
bare foot upon the body, and hacked and tore a strip of flesh from it. She extended the bloody chunk to
him, and was obviously surprised at his gesture of refusal.

After a moment she withdrew it, glanced again at his face, and set her own small white teeth in the meat.
Carver noted with interest how daintily she managed even that difficult maneuver, so that her soft lips
were not stained by the slightest drop of blood.

But his own hunger was unappeased. He frowned over the problem of conveying his meaning, but at last
hit upon a means. "Lilith!" he said sharply. Her eyes flashed at once to him. He indicated the meat she
held, then waved at the mysterious line of trees. "Fruit," he said. "Tree meat. See?" He went through the
motions of eating.

Again the girl understood instantly. It was odd, he mused, how readily she comprehended some things,
while others equally simple seemed utterly beyond her. Queer, as everything on Austin Island was queer.
Was Lilith, after all, entirely human? He followed her to the tree line, stealing a sidelong look at her wild,
flame-colored eyes, and her features, beautiful, but untamed, dryadlike, elfinтАФwild.