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.
Perhaps …
The lumbering giant stared at the naked flame and something like a whimper escaped from its lax, loosely open lips. An expression moved over the masculine head which was repeated, a few instants later, by the feminine head.
An expression of fear was followed by another expression, which was unreadable to Niamh.
In a moment, however, the twin brows were distorted in a double scowl, and the expression became discernible.
It was anger.
Quoron’s eyes had followed this, and now they glittered with feverish impatience and with the first, faint stirrings of apprehension. Time and again the lips of the bodiless head opened as if to frame words, but no sound could escape from that twitching mouth, as yet unconnected to the air supply. The tongue came out and moistened dry lips, and again the mouth strove to frame a vocal command. But no words came from the helpless head.
While Niamh watched with shuddering revulsion, the monster bent over the equipment table, and carefully selected a long, thin-bladed knife.
Then it slowly approached the dangling head, the hilt of the knife clenched in its huge upper right hand.
While the eyes of Quoron widened in a fixed and ghastly stare of unbelieving, uncomprehending horror, the giant reached forward with the knife. Its four eyes glared down at the helpless head of its master. The expression in those eyes astonished the princess, for the eyes of Number Nine now mirrored neither hatred nor anger nor even rage.
Their gaze was the cold, thoughtful, level, measuring look that appears in the eyes of a judge as he calmly ponders the fate of a despicable criminal.
Then the hand which held the knife lifted, drew back, and plunged the blade to its hilt into Quoron’s brain.
23.
Unexpected Meetings
The decision which Varda reached was the only one possible to one of her temperament. Madly infatuated with me, she could not endure the idea of slaying me herself; but neither could she permit me to escape without her. So she set me free.
Donning my garments and resuming my weapons, which she had kept stored in her cabin, I was soon ready to depart. Indeed every moment counted, for even now the vindictive Iona must be halfway back to Varda’s cabin, at the head of the troop of girls.
Together, Varda and I propped open the rear window—the same one through which Iona had spied upon us only minutes earlier. I lifted the slender girl over the sill and vaulted through the opening as soon as she was clear of it. Hand in hand we crept through the gloom of darkness, seeking the place where the wild girls had tethered, my skysled to the farther side of the branch.
I could not see my hand in front of my face, so deep and thick was the unbroken blackness of the night. But Varda knew every step of the way, and guided us with swift, unerring skill to the spot.
Examining the vehicle, I was relieved to learn that the teen-aged savages had merely emptied the sled of its stores, but had not tampered with either the controls or the engines. I lifted Varda aboard and showed her how to strap herself into one of the long shallow troughlike depressions scooped out in the shape of a human body. Then, assuming the pilot’s position, I energized the vehicle, and drew in the anchor-line that held us fastened to the twig. By the time Iona had burst triumphantly into Varda’s cabin, to find the surprise of her life, we had glided away from the limb and soon became lost in the dense gloom.
It is dangerous to fly by night through the world-forest, because of the dangers of collision with a branch or bole, and the ever-present hazards of becoming enmeshed in one of the monster spider webs spun between the giant trees by the immense albino spiders the Laonese call the xoph. So we flew only as far as the adjoining branch before tethering our craft in a safe place.
Or, at least, in a place we assumed to be safe.
With dawn we had a surprise of our own, however; and it was every bit as much of a shock as the jolt our inexplicable absence probably gave to Iona.
When the kraan scouting party burst into the gleaming white room under the blaze of the sterile lamps, they beheld an unfathomable tableau.
Suspended amid a maze of pipes and flexible tubing, the lifeless head of a noble-looking man hung with a scalpel thrust directly between its eyes.
Shackled to the farther wall, a slim, exquisite young woman stared at them with eyes wide and frightened in the tense white oval of her face.
From a distant chamber came the sound of shattering glass and the crash of overturned tables. A moment later there appeared in the doorway a towering colossus with four arms, three legs, and two heads, brandishing a length of metallic tubing.
It was Number Nine.
After wreaking a dire but deserved vengeance upon its mad creator, the shambling horror had run amok. First it had gone on a rampage through the outer laboratory, smashing the vessels which held in a ghastly semblance of vitality the several organs removed from human bodies, which Quoron had striven to imbue with life.
Then it entered the white chamber and put the idiot head of Wa-Wa out of its misery.
Now it burst into the operation theater and charged the ant scouts, waving its improvised metal club. The berserk giant went crashing through the great warrior ants, hurling them aside, shattering their carapaces of horny chitin with terrific blows, swinging its metal club with irresistible force.
The kraan, their antennae jerking in agitation, withdrew from the chamber, forcing Zorak to accompany them. Crowded together in the narrow corridor, the ant warriors could not easily bring into play their mighty pincers or the fierce claws with which their multiple-jointed limbs were armed. One by one they died under the blows of the mad giant’s club, but not before their sharp, toothed mandibles had wrought savage wounds in the torso and arms of the colossus, which soon streamed blood from a dozen injuries.
Clustering at the base of the tower, Xikchaka dispatched two ant warriors and Zorak the Bowman to rejoin the main body of the horde and report their discovery.
They had not got far from the site of the Opal Tower, however, before a new marvel burst upon them in the form of a tall, gaunt, naked manlike figure with leathery golden hide and immense batwings.
It was Zarqa the Kalood!
One of the ant warriors thrust the long spear it held at the weird figure as it hovered on flapping, ungainly wings two yards above the branch’s surface. The Winged Man reached out with long arms and snatched the weapon from the grip of the kraan who was jabbing it in his direction.
Then, with miraculous precision, Zarqa flung the heavy spear directly at the great red ant, transfixing its body. So powerful was the impetus of his spear-cast that the spear not only penetrated the kraan chitinous armor, but pierced its body, pinning it to the branch to which it clung with many feet.
Simultaneously, Zorak, instantly recognizing the gaunt Kalood as a friend, turned on the second ant scout, jerked his tether from its claws, and sprang upon its back. While sharp horny mandibles chomped and scraped against his burly forearm, the stalwart bowman thrust one arm between the jaws of the huge insect, seized its hooked snout in the other hand, and with one surge of massive thews, broke its neck.
Twitching spasmodically, the scarlet monster collapsed, and Zorak sprang free. Snatching away his choke collar, the brawny bowman drew his first deep breath as a free man in many days.
The Kalood came down to a fluttering landing on the branch and in a moment they clasped hands in heartfelt greeting.