"Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Hunters of the Red Moon - 1973" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bradley Marion Zimmer)

He screamed, "Why?" into the darkness, but the darkness did not answer, and after a million years he stopped listening for the answer....



CHAPTER FIVE



His head ached, and his arms felt as if they had been broken off at the wrists. Dane Marsh opened his eyes, and found that he was in a cell he had never seen before. One arm was fastened in a tight cuff to the wall, by a chain about six feet long. Across the cell from him, Aratak was manacled with a similar arrangement Rianna lay asleep on the floor; Dallith sat hunched over, her arms wrapped around her knees, staring fixedly at him. As he opened his eyes she said, "You're alive!" and her face was suffused with surprise and joy. "I wasn't sure, you were so far away...."

"I'm alive, for what that's worth," Dane said. "I see you are, too. What happened; to the others?"

Rianna opened her eyes. "Roxon was the first one they killed," she said. "They killed half a dozen others, too, I think. As for the others, they unloaded them-and I heard them say it was at the Gorbahl slave mart-three days ago. I expect they have something special in mind for us, but as for what it is"-she smiled bitterly-"your guess is as good as mine. My personal notion is that they're saving us for dinner. We killed two of the Mekhars, and that's not something they're going to sit back and accept"

"It isn't bad," Dallith said stubbornly. "There's something hopeful about it They were _pleased at what we did."

"How can you tell?" Rianna shouted. "This is all your fault If Dane hadn't saved your life we'd all have gone to the Gorbahl slave mart, but Roxon would be alive, and there might have been a chance for some of us-*'

Aratak said in a commanding rumble, "Quiet, child. None of this is Dallith's fault, any more than yours. You, too, were eager to take part hi the escape, and as for Roxon, perhaps he too felt he would rather die than live as a slave. In any case he is dead and beyond your pity or your help, and Dallith is not The four of us are all together in trouble, and if we begin to quarrel, there is truly no chance."

"There's none anyway," Rianna said bitterly, and rolled over, hiding her face beneath her bright hair.

"Rianna-" Dane said, but she turned her back again and would not look at him.

_She blames me for Roxon's death, and the death of the others, he thought

But there was nothing he could say to that Perhaps it was true. Perhaps he, having less to lose than the others

-whatever happened, his own world was irrevocably lost-had been indifferent to life or death.

Aratak said, "At least you three are of one people, creatures of one blood. None of my kind remain on board this ship. Must I find myself alone?"

Dallith went slowly toward him and slipped her small delicate hand into his huge clawed paw. She said gently, "We are brothers and sisters in misfortune, Aratak, under the Universal Law. I know that. Dane knows it. And Rianna will know it again, sooner or later."

Dane nodded. He felt very close to the huge lizard-man at whose side he had nearly been killed. "We made a good fight of it, anyway," he said. "Between us, we accounted for a couple of those damned cat-faced things! Whatever happens to us now, it was worth it."

Aratak gave an emphatic nod and his gills glowed blue.

Dane found himself wondering, _What now? "Do they feed us?"

Rianna sat up, flinging her red hair back. She said, "Who cares? If you do, yes; if anything they feed us better than ever, though they shove our food in through the bars-no one comes near us now."

Dane said, 'Then they certainly aren't going to torture us to death, and if they were going to kill us I think they'd have done it. Cats aren't subtle creatures. They'd have torn us to pieces right then, if they were going to."

"That's what I've been trying to tell you," Dallith said. "I don't know what's in store for us-I can't read their minds without going-berserk-as I did then, when I tried-I tried-" She suddenly shuddered. "For a moment, I _was the Mekhar. I went for him with teeth-and claws-"

She was silent. Then, firmly, dismissing the thought, she said, "But this I know. They are not going to kill us, and we have become even more valuable to them. So it is my turn to say: don't think about dying, Rianna. Keep up your strength and your hopes. We'll find out now, very soon, what is going to happen. We're alive, and we're all together. There's no need to despair."

It was at least evident that their status had changed and that they were now regarded as dangerous. Food was thrust through the bars-from a safe distance-by Mekhars who never spoke to them and seemed wary even of coming close to the bars. Three times a day, the chains on Dane and on Aratak were lengthened-by loosening a staple from outside the cell-so that they could enter a small shower-toilet area. At all other times they were left strictly to themselves to entertain whatever guesses, conjectures, or thoughts they might devise about their eventual fate or fates.