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

genera had dissolved, and only the grand divisions remained.

Carver had covered nearly a mile along the beach before the pangs of hunger recalled his original mission
to his mind. He had to have food of some sort, animal or vegetable. With a feeling of distinct relief, he
eyed the beach birds quarreling raucously up and down the sand; at least, they were perfectly normal
representatives of the genus Larus. But they made, at best, but tough and oily fare, and his glance
returned again to the mysterious woodlands.

He saw now a trail or path, or perhaps just a chance thinning of the vegetation along a subsoil ridge of
rock, that led into the green shades, slanting toward the forested hill at the western end of the island. That
offered the first convenient means of penetration he had encountered, and in a moment he was slipping
through the dusky aisle, watching sharply for either fruit or bird.

He saw fruit in plenty. Many of the trees bore globes and ovoids of various sizes, but the difficulty, so far
as Carver was concerned, was that he saw none he could recognize as edible. He dared not chance
biting into some poisonous variety, and Heaven alone knew what wild and deadly alkaloids this queer
island might produce.

Birds fluttered and called in the branches, but for the moment he saw none large enough to warrant a
bullet. And besides, another queer fact had caught his attention; he noticed that the farther he proceeded
from the sea, the more bizarre became the infinite forms of the trees of the forest. Along the beach he had
been able at least to assign an individual growth to its family, if not its genus, but here even those
distinctions began to vanish.

He knew why. "The coastal growths are crossed with strays from other islands," he muttered. "But in
here they've run wild. The whole island's run wild."

The movement of a dark mass against the leaf-sprinkled sky caught his attention. A bird? If it were, it
was a much larger one than the inconsiderable passerine songsters that fluttered about him. He raised his
revolver carefully, and fired.

The weird forest echoed to the report. A body large as a duck crashed with a long, strange cry, thrashed
briefly among the grasses of the forest floor, and was still. Carver hurried forward to stare in perplexity at
his victim.

It was not a bird. It was a climbing creature of some sort, armed with viciously sharp claws and wicked,
needle-pointed white teeth in a triangular little red mouth. It resembled quite closely a small dogтАФif one
could imagine a tree-climbing dogтАФand for a moment Carver froze in surprise at the thought that he had
inadvertently shot somebody's mongrel terrier, or at least some specimen of Canis.

But the creature was no dog. Even disregarding its plunge from the treetops, Carver could see that. The
retractile claws, five on the forefeet, four on the hind, were evidence enough, but stronger still was the
evidence of those needle teeth. This was one of the Felidae. He could see further proof in the yellow,
slitted eyes that glared at him in moribund hate, to lose their fire now in death. This was no dog, but a cat!

His mind flashed to that other apparition on the bank of the stream. That had borne a wild aspect of feline
nature, too. What was the meaning of it? Cats that looked like monkeys; cats that looked like dogs!

He had lost his hunger. After a moment he picked up the furry body and set off toward the beach. The
zoologist had superseded the man; this dangling bit of disintegrating protoplasm was no longer food, but a