The Stones of Nomuru
- Автор: Де Камп Лайон Спрэг
- Серия: Viagens Interplanetarias #7
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Stones of Nomuru». Краткое содержание книги:
Mild-mannered Terra archeologist Keith Salazar was just minding his business, digging up the alien past on an out-of-the-way site on the planet Kukulcan, when suddenly he was beseiged by intruders on his scholarly peace: hostile natives, an indifferent ex-wife, and a demon developer with rapacious eyes glued on both his site and his true love.
In the course of protecting his dig, regaining his loved one and vanquishing his rival, Salazar will fight a giant reptilian predator bare-handed, leap into snake-filled pits, engineer the planet's first imperial conquest, lead and train a battalion of alien riflemen, and hold a séance. Pretty exciting work--but then maybe Keith Salazar wasn't such a milquetoast after all...
"Your Gallantry is misinformed. Miss Sheffield and I can communicate faster than can be done by any courier, to warn you when the Choshas invade Shongosi. Our method has nothing to do with electricity."
"What is it, then?"
Salazar thought with furious intensity. He did not believe that he could quickly convert General Jidsho to the use of Terran electronics by citing the approval of Emperor Simmo's ghost. At last he said:
"Your Gallantry, Miss Sheffield and I are cousins. To communicate across long distances, we call upon the spirits of our common ancestors such as our great-great-grandparents. They carry our messages to preserve family solidarity."
Salazar fell silent, while Jidsho stood for a long minute with his chin on his talons. He turned to the Kook holding Salazar's rifle. "Let me see that!"
After turning the gun over in his claws, Jidsho said: "This is one of those Terran firearms that shoot again and again without reloading. Such inventions have ruined the noble art of war, making victory not a matter of strength or bravery but of blind luck, slaying by missiles launched from afar. I wish the gun had never been invented and that we still fought in the old heroic way, with swords and spears. I am told that Terrans have developed this evil art to the point where they can wipe out all life on a planet."
"But, Your Gallantry," said Salazar, "if you sent your men with swords and spears against the Choshas' guns, what would happen? Then consider the use of Terran rifles against the nomads' muzzle-loaders. It is a choice between disagreeable alternatives."
Jidsho gave a hiss that might have been a Kukulcanian sigh. "Your words contain a bitter logic, Sarasara; and your story has a plausible ring. But I am not so simple as to take it at face value. I shall therefore call upon the Universal Law to decide betwixt you and General Shta. I shall let your veracity be determined by the ancient and honorable ordeal of hurui, which, sadly, has fallen into disuse in recent centuries."
He croaked a word to his servitors, who seized Kara and began stripping her. Others pinioned Salazar's arms.
"Hey!" yelled Salazar, futilely struggling in his captors' iron grip. "Stop! You cannot do that! You will rob us of our dignity! Your thus disgracing a Terran woman will enrage every Terran on the planet!"
General Jidsho paid no heed, and the servitors continued roughly with their work. Unused to Terran clothes, they had trouble with buttons and slide fasteners. Some of the garments were torn by their claws.
Soon Kara was as naked as Penny Molina had been the night of the party. Four Kooks carried Kara to the central pit, sprang down to its floor, and tied her to the post.
"What are you going to do?" demanded Salazar. "Burn her?" The general croaked the one word: "Nay!"
"What, then?"
The forked tongue flickered. "You shall see."
Two Kooks came through a side entrance, carrying a huge basket with a lid. They set the basket down on the edge of the pit, whisked off the lid, and tipped the basket forward. Out poured a dozen or more slender, wriggling, black-and-white striped shapes, which fell to the floor of the pit and scuttled about, hissing angrily.
"Kara!" shouted Salazar. "Freeze! Don't move a muscle! They're venomous boshiyas!"
General Jidsho spoke again; two Kooks untied Salazar's arms. "Now," said Jidsho, "if you succeed in rescuing your fellow alien, your words will have been proven correct by the Universal Law."
"If you'll give me back my guns, or even my knife—" began Salazar, but the general held up a claw.
"Nay, you must save her just as you are. The ordeal would not prove your veracity otherwise."
Salazar stepped to the edge of the pit. He could see Kara's eyes following his movements, but otherwise she held herself as rigid as a statue. The boshiyas, resembling Terran lizards with long, snaky necks, four legs apiece, and long tails, scuttled about, hissing and tongue-flicking. Most were less than a meter in length; but a couple of the largest were longer and capable, should they rear up, of biting Salazar above the tops of his boots.
He walked slowly around the pit, his glance darting about for some stratagem that he could use. From each of two tall tent poles, many ropes led down to the ground inside the canvas and were tied to the tent pegs. The canvas lay upon these ropes, which had not been sewn into the fabric.
If, Salazar thought, he detached a rope from the peg to which it was belayed, he could use it to swing across the pit. He knew that he could not snatch up Kara during his swing, since she was bound to the post.
He felt in his pockets. Lacking clothes, the Kooks were unfamiliar with pockets; they carried their petty personals in pouches slung from belts and straps. Once they had relieved him of his big sheath knife, it had never occurred to them that he might also have a clasp knife in his breeches.
He squatted at the lower end of a tent rope with his back to the Kooks, so that they could not see what he was doing. With the clasp knife he sawed at the rope until it parted. Putting away the knife, he rose, grasping the rope at man height.
Since the rope slanted from the top of the tent pole to the edge of the tent, Salazar knew that he must make a short run to swing across the pit, and that he would follow a curved path. Stepping to within a couple of meters of the edge, he ran towards Kara and swung across.
As he passed over them, the boshiyas craned their necks upwards, hissing. In the middle of his swing, at the low point in his arc, he brought his boots down on a boshiya, smashing it into the hard-packed earth and leaving it broken and writhing.
Salazar had intended to make repeated swings across the pit, stamping one of the pseudo-lizards to death on each swing. But he had miscalculated the length of run he needed to bring him safely out on the other side. The swing slowed and stopped just as he passed over the edge, a third of the way around the pit. He scrambled with his boots for a foothold; but the earth of the edge crumbled, cascading into the pit.
Failing to secure his footing, Salazar found himself swinging back across the pit like a pendulum. Because of the angle of the rope, he saw that his swing would quickly bring him up against the edge, where he could scramble up for another try ...
There was a flash, a puff of black-powder smoke, and a loud report. The rope went slack, dropping Salazar to the floor of the pit. He almost fell but by a desperate effort staggered to a balance as coils of rope fell on him. He realized that a Kook had fired a musket to sever the rope.
He sprang back as a boshiya reared and struck. All around, other boshiyas advanced, hissing and rearing their serpentine heads. These animals would ordinarily flee from any creature as large as a man; but now they were enraged.
For some unexplained reason, the tune of Bizet's Toreador Song flashed through Salazar's mind. He whipped off his bush jacket and held it before him like a matador's cape, while with the other hand he gathered up the severed part of the tent rope, now lying partly in and partly out of the pit. He had about three meters of rope, which he grasped by the bight, double, to form a double whip. With the rope in one hand and the jacket in the other, he confronted the boshiyas, turning about to ward off those behind him.
One of them struck at the coat. Its fangs caught in the fabric, so that when Salazar whipped the garment away, the beast was thrown across the pit. He slashed with the rope at another, knocking it writhing; then sprang forward to stamp the coiling creature until it merely twitched. Whirling the rope, he cleared away a couple more before him and finally got all those still active on one side.
Still full of fight, they came at him in a tongue-darting, wriggling mass. They were tough organisms; those he had hurled aside returned instantly to the attack. When they were nearly upon him, he threw the jacket over them and leaped upon it.