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

The zoologist was not too preoccupied with the accumulation of mysteries to glance occasionally at the
wild beauty of her face, and once he caught himself trying to picture her in civilized attireтАФher mahogany
hair confined under one of the current tiny hats, her lithe body sheathed in finer textile than the dried and
cracking skin she wore, her feet in dainty leather, and her ankles in chiffon. He scowled and thrust the
visualization away, bur whether because it seemed too anomalous or too attractive he did not trouble to
analyze.

He turned up the slope. Austin was heavily wooded, like the Aucklands, but progress was easy, for it
was through a forest, not a jungle. A mad forest, true enough, but still comparatively clear of underbrush.

A shadow flickered, then another. But the first was only a queen's pigeon, erecting its glorious feather
crest, and the second only an owl parrot. The birds on Austin were normal; they were simply the
ordinary feathered life of the southern seas. Why? Because they were mobile; they traveled, or were
blown by storms, from island to island.

It was mid-afternoon before Carver reached the peak, where a solemn outcropping of black basalt rose
treeless, like a forester's watchtower. He clambered up its eroded sides and stood with Lilith beside him,
gazing out across the central valley of Austin Island to the hill at the eastern point, rising until its peak
nearly matched their own.

Between sprawled the wild forest, in whose depths blue-green shadows shifted in the breeze like squalls
visible here and there on the surface of a calm lake. Some sort of soaring bird circled below, and far
away, in the very center of the valley, was the sparkle of water. That, he knew must be the rivulet he had
already visited. But nowhereтАФnowhere at allтАФwas there any sign of human occupation to account for
the presence of LilithтАФno smoke, no clearing, nothing.

The girl touched his arm timidly, and gestured toward the opposite hill.

"Pah bo!" she said tremulously. It must have been quite obvious to her that he failed to understand, for
she amplified the phrase. "R-r-r-r!" she growled, drawing her perfect lips into an imitation of a snarl. "Pah
bo, lay shot." She pointed again toward the east.

Was she trying to tell him that some fierce beasts dwelt in that region? Carver could not interpret her
symbolism in any other way, and the phrase she had used was the same she had applied to the poisonous
fruit.

He narrowed his eyes as he gazed intently toward the eastern eminence, then started. There was
something, not on the opposing hill, but down near the flash of water midway between.
At his side hung the prism binoculars he used for identifying birds. He swung the instrument to his eyes.
What he saw, still not clearly enough for certainty, was a mound or structure, vine-grown and irregular.
But it might be the roofless walls of a ruined cottage.

The sun was sliding westward. Too late in the day now for exploration, but to-morrow would do. He
marked the place of the mound in his memory, then scrambled down.

As darkness approached, Lilith began to evince a curious reluctance to move eastward, hanging back,
sometimes dragging timidly at his arm. Twice she said "No, no!" and Carver wondered whether the word
was part of her vocabulary or whether she had acquired it from him. Heaven knew, he reflected
amusedly, that he had used the word often enough, as one might use it to a child.