In the Green Star's Glow
- Автор: Картер Лин Спрэг
- Серия: Green Star Rises #5
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «In the Green Star's Glow». Краткое содержание книги:
But he was also an Earthling, whose helpless body lay in suspended animation in a guarded mansion in New England. It was his alien mind that drove Karn through perils that no other wold dare...
In the Green Star's Glow is a science fantasy novel in the tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Written by American author Lin Carter, it is the final book in his Green Star series. It was first published in 1976.
To be frank, I expected to be rescued, for I knew that my absence from Komar would not long go unnoticed, and that when both the skysled and myself were discovered to be missing, my friends would swiftly put two and two together, and arrive at the appropriate sum. Nor would they waste time in coming after me.
That they might have unexpected difficulties in finding me, I did not at that time envision. I had, you will understand, by this time so thoroughly become lost and disoriented, that I had not the slightest idea of quite how far I had strayed from the point at which I had first entered the forest, nor of quite how deeply my wanderings had taken me into the depths of the wilderness of gigantic trees. That forest, of course, stretched in an unbroken mass from horizon to horizon and from pole to pole, covering, insofar as any of us then knew, the entire surface of the World of the Green Star. The only portion of the planet’s surface which was definitely known to be free and unencumbered by the world-forest, was, of course, that section occupied by the Komarian Sea.
So, as you will understand, I had plenty of room to be lost in!
Remaining in my blissful state of ignorance, and expecting at any moment the arrival of my friends to extricate me from my present plight and predicament, I worried little over the future and endured, with that stoicism and fortitude I have already described, the cruel treatment I suffered at the hands of these spiteful and malicious children.
Nor did I hate my savage captors.
But these expectations, of course, did not prohibit me from keeping a close and careful watch out for a chance to escape on my own. Confident are those who help themselves.
In all, I must admit that my personal feelings toward my savage little captors were of a somewhat ambivalent nature. I could not quite find it within me to despise them, for all the abuse and discomfiture I endured at their hands.
At a young and tender age they had been wantonly savaged by the slavers who had carried them off forcibly into the wilderness, and by that act had seemingly doomed them to lives of hopeless despair. That they had managed to escape from the hands of the marauders had in no way alleviated the precarious and perilous situation into which they had been thrust.
Nor could they be blamed for their fear and loathing and mistrust of my sex, for it was at the hands of men like myself that they had suffered untold horrors and humiliations, from which indignities only the chance attack of the swarm of zzumalaks, or giant killer-bees, had delivered them.
Helpless to find their way home again, the girls had simply ventured out into the wilderness; at length finding the safe, secure nook in which they had built their camp and made it their home. Many of the tools and weapons which had formerly been the possessions of the slavers they had carried off with them, for to the survivor belongs the possessions of the slain.
The only other thing they had borne away from their dire experience at the mercy of the slave-marauders was their vicious and virulent hatred, loathing, and mistrust of all things male and masculine.
Which was only natural and human, and, certainly, quite understandable.
But which was, from my point of view, regrettable; for that hatred unfortunately included myself.
My chances for escape were very soon to take on healthy and renewed vigor. Here is how it came about.
One day my giggling captors led me farther down the great branch on which their encampment was constructed than until now I had been permitted to travel.
The reason for this lay in the discovery of an unexpected colony of the giant tree-snails, or huoma, whose tender and delicious meat made a succulent and desirable treat to our appetites. In general we lived on more Spartan and even vegetarian fare.
Under the watchful eye of the girls I pried the huge snails one by one from their positions, and bundled them into nets. Later, back at the camp, we would unshell the creatures and boil them in their own juices.
Quite a considerable number of the huge, thick-witted, slow-moving, gentle, and quite harmless monster snails had for some reason gathered on the branch, so the work occupied us for the remainder of that day.
The last few snails had sluggishly sought to avoid capture by crawling, in their lumbering form of perambulation, around to the underside of the branch.
In order to gather these last, reluctant survivors of the snail colony, I had to venture the risky business of climbing around beneath the branch. The situation was precarious and not without a certain element of danger, for I was suspended by ropes held in the hands of my careless and capricious mistresses, who threatened to let me fall if I did not quickly accomplish my tasks.
The job was difficult, and tiring, but for a very good reason I was delighted that it had fallen to my lot.
This peculiar contradiction lay in the fact of what I discovered from my upside-down position at the end of the rope.
The skysled was tethered to a down-jutting twig.
Evidently the girls had, with time, become curious as to the nature of the odd contrivance in which I had been curled up asleep when they found me and made me their captive.
A second expedition had retraced the path taken by the first, and, when the utter weightlessness of the vehicle was discovered (which made it easy to bear the prize home to the girls’ camp), they had retrieved the peculiar treasure and it now reposed, safely tethered, at no very great distance from the tree-houses.
If I could somehow manage to contrive my escape—the means of flight to freedom was close at hand.
The tantalizing presence of the skysled drove new life into my hopes for escape.
That night, as you can easily imagine, I tossed and turned, schemes tumbling through my feverish brain, and got very little sleep.
18.
Varda
The nearness of the skysled put escape virtually within my grasp. But it did nothing to make escape a reality. For still was I bound and watched and tethered every moment of the day and night.
So, for the time being, I held my peace and waited things out, ever alert for the slightest slip or inattention on the part of the wild girls when I might seize opportunity by the forelock.
And still my friends did not come.
The ever-present rivalry between Varda and Iona filled the air with the tension of an unresolved conflict. Iona was continually challenging the authority of Varda, the wisdom of her decisions, and the justice of her rules. Moreover, she was constantly complaining, quarreling, criticizing. Varda kept her temper, for the most part, although I for one cannot understand how she managed to accomplish this.
But she was fully aware of the fact that Iona hated and envied her, and desired more than anything else to supplant her in the chieftaincy of the Amazon band. She knew all too well that the jealous older girl was whispering and scheming behind her back, but there was little she could do about it.
Instead, she took her frustrations and tensions out on me.
I was the butt of her fury and the object of her derision. Nothing I did pleased her sufficiently, and in no way could I satisfy her demands of perfection. I was punished, sometimes by scorn and mockery and public humiliation, but very often by punishment of a more corporeal nature.
Through it all I held my tongue, maintained my dignity as best I could, and watched and waited for the chance to make a break for freedom. Would it never come? Would I never be free of these malicious girls, free to seek my own lost beloved amid the trackless forest? Even now she might be dead, or dying, or suffering unendurable torments or privations, or in deadly danger.