"Wolfe, Gene - The Urth Of The New Sun" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

descending the wall.
"You go first," I said.
There was no rushing toward me--we were not a span
apart--and thus no time for me to draw my pistol. He
seized me with a strength I found amazing, forced me
back a step, and pushed me violently. For an instant I
teetered at the edge of the platform, clawing air; then I
fell.
Doubtless I would have broken my neck on Urth. On the
ship, I might almost be said to have floated down. Yet the
slowness of my fall did nothing to allay the terror I felt in
falling. I saw ceiling and platform revolve above me. I was
conscious that I would land on my back, with spine and
skull bearing the shock, and yet I could not turn myself. I
clutched for some support, and my imagination fervently,
feverishly conjured up the flying jib stay. The four faces
looking down at me--Sidero's armored visor, Idas's chalk-white
cheeks, Purn's grin, Gunnie's beautiful, brutal
features--seemed masks from a nightmare. And surely no
waking unfortunate flung from the top of the Bell Tower
had so long in which to contemplate his own destruction.
I struck with a jolt that knocked out my breath. For a
hundred heartbeats or more I lay gasping, just as I had
panted for air when I had at last regained the interior of the
ship. Slowly I realized that though I had suffered a fall
indeed, it had been no worse than I might have suffered in
falling from my bed to the carpet in some evil dream of
Typhon. Sitting up, I found no broken bones.
Bundles of papers had been my carpet, and I thought
Sidero must have known they were there and that I would
not be hurt. Then I saw beside me a crazily tilted mechanism,
spiky with shafts and levers.
I got to my feet. Far above, the platform was empty, the
door that led to the corridor closed. I looked for the
spidery ladder, but all except the uppermost rungs were
obscured by the mechanism. I edged around that, impeded
by the unevenly stacked bundles (they had been tied with
sisal, and some of the cords had broken, so that I slipped
and slid over documents as I might have over snow), but
greatly aided by the lightness of my body.
Because I was looking down to find my footing, I did not
see the thing before me until I was actually peering into its
blind face.


Chapter III -- The Cabin


MY HAND went to my pistol--I had it out and leveled
almost before I knew it. The shaggy creature seemed no