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.
I had not expected to find you, bowman, said the Winged Man in his solemn telepathic mode of speech, which was like a small quiet voice speaking amid your own thoughts.
“But I am very glad you did!” Zorak said feelingly, grinning. “Two against one are very unequal odds, especially when the two are great killer kraan.”
I was searching by mental means for my lost companions, continued Zarqa, and it seemed to me that I detected the radiations of the mind of Princess Niamh, which were emanating from a tower of my race very near to where we are standing. Flying toward the spire I observed you being led along the branch by these two insect creatures, and could not afford to let pass the opportunity of rescuing you, as well.
“For which I confess myself extremely grateful.” Zorak smiled. “And you are indeed correct; the princess is bound to an upper chamber within the tower, which lies a ways farther up the branch from here. My kraan captors and I were just returning to the main body of the ant-army to summon reinforcements to surround the tower, which is held by a murdering monster with an unusual assortment of arms, legs, and heads.”
Then it is imperative that we repair to the tower at once, in order to rescue the princess from the clutches of the ogre you describe, commented Zarqa.
Zorak heartily agreed. Taking up the weapons with which the two ants had been armed, he and the Winged Man headed at once for the tower of Quoron.
But they were too late …
After the berserk giant had driven the giant ants from the laboratory, leaving her alone and still helplessly manacled to the wall, Niamh sagged wearily in her chains, pondering the peculiar reverses of fortune. Had it not been Zorak the Bowman she had, however briefly, glimpsed at the rear of the ant party when they had entered the chamber? She could have sworn it was indeed the gallant Tharkoonian archer who had so recklessly sprung to her assistance many days ago in Komar, when the sky craft drifted free of the palace roof.
Relieved as she was to discover that the stalwart bowman had somehow survived his fall from the branch, after their battle with the dragonlike ythid, the spirits of the princess wilted within her as he was snatched from her sight again by the monster insects, who seemed to be his masters.
Now she was alone in the Opal Tower with a raving maniac!
It was a situation so dire and perilous as to dishearten even the most sanguine of heroines. But there was more to come, as Niamh soon discovered.
For she was not alone …
Appearing as suddenly as an apparition, the huge form of a mighty insect filled the doorway to the operating theater.
The red ant stood observing her from its featureless casque of a head with multicellular eyes like enormous, many-faceted black crystals. No human emotion was readable in the cold glitter of those uncanny eyes.
Beneath its head, a low-slung jaw moved slightly. Sawtoothed mandibles rasped against each other in a slow, rubbing motion which sent a thrill of fearful anticipation through the girl’s slight frame.
Many-jointed feet moved spiderwise. Claws clicking against the white tiles of the floor, the gigantic killer ant moved slowly into the room.
The glare of sterilizing lamps gleamed on the oily red chitin armor that entirely covered its swelling thorax.
While Niamh watched, eyes fixed in fascination upon the silent monster, it approached the wall to which she was chained, moving gradually. The stealthy, almost furtive, way in which it advanced upon her reminded the helpless girl of the manner in which a cunning treedragon stealthily creeps upon its unsuspecting prey.
Across the upper breast of the monster kraan inexplicable signs or markings were painted. Several of its minor limbs grasped edged metal weapons. From these two facts, and the orderly manner in which the party of ants had withdrawn from the room before the charging colossus, the girl deduced that the giant insect was of coldly unhuman intelligence.
But having never seen a specimen of the kraan so closely before, she had no way of guessing its mood or its purpose.
She watched with eyes wide in hypnotic fascination as the enormous insect came within a few feet of where she was bound.
Then it reached with clawed limbs for her, and she screamed.
24.
The Kiss
The great ant reached for her and Niamh screamed and shrank against the wall. Grasping her binding chains in its claws, the kraan thrust its head forward and crunched the links of the chain between its horny mandibular jaws.
After several tries, the kraan succeeded in biting through the chain.
And Niamh was free …
She stared with unbelieving eyes at the, giant insect as it assisted her in stripping away the last vestiges of her bondage. Then, rasping and clicking its mandibles together in a weird and, at first, unintelligible imitation of human speech, the warrior ant addressed the girl it had set free.
“Once a male member of your species assisted Xikchaka to freedom from bondage,” the insect-creature said. “Later, we assisted each other in the wilderness; but Xikchaka’s human companion was captured by the warriors and scouts of Xikchaka’s own kind. In memory of the kindness which a member of your species once performed for this unworthy and ungrateful kraan, Xikchaka has served you as the human, Zorak, served Xikchaka.”
“Thank you for your kindness,” whispered Niamh faintly. The insect-creature regarded her with solemn, emotionless gaze. Then it slowly shook its huge helmlike head from side to side in a negative gesture obviously, copied from humans.
“It is not ‘kindness,’ ” said the great ant. “The kraan do not understand such human emotions as the one called ‘kindness.’ No; it is simply logical for Xikchaka to do this. A returned favor balances the score. Perhaps, at some period in the unguessable future, Xikchaka will be in a difficult or a dangerous position, and you will be able to lend him aid. Go, now, to that freedom which it seems you humans prize so highly. The night is dark. Xikchaka’s fellow kraan will not be able to observe you pass, for he has commanded them to withdraw from the vicinity of the tower into a place of concealment. As for the deformed human giant, it has been slain. Go, then. But if ever in your wanderings you encounter a male of your species, one Zorak by name, say to him that perhaps he has been instrumental in teaching one kraan, at least, the meaning of ‘friendship.’ “
Niamh went, and speedily, fleeing from the tower and down the branch in the darkness to the place where she had left the sky-ship of Ralidux.
Thus it occurred that when Zarqa the Kalood and Zorak the Bowman came to the Opal Tower they found it untenanted by anyone save the dead.
Among them, the body of Niamh of Phaolon, happily, was not to be found. Neither were the remainder of the scouting party, or Xikchaka. Thus it was that the two had no notion of what had become of the princess nor of where she had fled.
Do not worry, friend Zorak, the Winged Man reassured his comrade. She cannot have gone far on foot, and by mind-search I shall soon locate her.
“That is all very well, since you have wings, but I must go on foot,” remarked the bowman. “We must part here, I am afraid. If you manage to find the princess, tell her that the ant horde is under the insidious influence of Delgan, the former Warlord of the Blue Barbarians, and that it is poised to march against Niamh’s own city of Phaolon, which cannot lie more than a tree or two away from this branch. Alert the warriors of Phaolon, I beg you!”
We shall carry the warning to them together, you and I, advised Zarqa with a slight smile. For, having once located you, it is not my intention to permit us to became separated again. My wings are as strong as they are swift, and I can easily bear your weight for a time.