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

She shook her head. "No. I took a calculated risk. I'm an anthropologist and I was exploring a deserted artificial satellite, under permit, for traces of a prehistoric technology. I was warned that there had been a Mekhar raid in the next star-system but it seemed to me a very small chance they'd make it their next stop. I took the chance-and lost. They killed my brother, and one of my three colleagues. One of the others is over there"-she pointed to where a heavyset man, with a strong ethnic resemblance to the woman, was deep in conversation with a tall frail-looking girl-"and the other was wounded in the raid and he's still in the ship's hospital. Unless they've killed him, too, as damaged merchandise." Her tone was indescribably bitter. Dane didn't blame her. "My name is Rianna. For all the good it does me now."

She fell silent, and Dane looked around. Beyond the cage where he was, there were further cages, equally barred and half open, all filled with people as far as he could see. He said, "How can it possibly pay them to stop on a planet for one person?"

She shrugged. "Normally it doesn't Slaves are luxury merchandise and they usually take more. Before we were luxury goods, I gather we were not so well-treated, but now they go to great pains to keep us well and happy. They even equip us with translator disks, in spite of the fact that it permits us to talk and possibly even plot against them, because-they say-when we can't communicate with our fellow prisoners it's bad for our morale."

There was a stir down the open corridor between the rows of barred cages, and a loud clanging sound. Rianna said, with a wry grimace, "Feeding time for the animals."

Two of the lion-faced creatures were wheeling a large cart down the hallway. As they drew even with each door, one of them leveled a narrow black tube-evidently a weapon of some sort-at the doorway while the other unloaded several flat packaged trays from the cart, each tray in a different color, and carried them into the cell-or cage. Dane watched the proceeding without moving. When they had finished, the clanging sound came again and Rianna said, "We can go now and get the food. If anyone moves while they're unloading, he gets shot with the nerve-gun. It might not kill you, but it's set to maximum pain-stimulation and it's like being dipped in boiling oil." She shuddered. "I got in the way when we were captured; it was three days before I could move without wanting to scream."

Dane had wondered about that; why all the prisoners in any one cage didn't rush the guards at once. He said, "Doesn't anyone ever try to get loose?"

"Not twice," she said with a wry face. "And if you _did get loose, where would you go? There are eighty Mekhars, all with nerve-guns, loose on this ship-maybe more." She moved to where the other cell-mates were taking up the food. Rummaging through the stacked trays, she found two color-coded with blue and green stripes. "This is Universal coding for proto-simian food. In a pinch you can eat the plain green or the plain blue. Never touch red-coded or orange-coded stuff; it hasn't the right vitamins. And the yellow-coded stuff will poison you; it's coded for insectivores."

The redheaded man with the strong ethnic resemblance to Rianna came over to them, tray in hand. They dropped on the floor to eat. He said to Dane, "Welcome to the fellowship of the damned," as he tore open his package. "My name is Roxon. I see Rianna has been welcoming you."

"Dane Marsh," Dane said. He slowly opened the package. Heated by some internal mechanism, the food was smoking hot, and, when he began to spoon it up, surprisingly tasty; some kind of mush, slightly sweet, some kind of crisp textured stuff, slightly salty; a soup-like liquid, somewhat bitter, but good. "At least these Mekhars, or whatever you call them, don't mean to starve us."

"Why should they?" The squat creature with the leathery skin-at close range Dane could see that it _was skin-came and hunkered down beside them. "Welcome, fellow thinker, in the name of Universal Sapience and Peace." His package was coded in yellow and red stripes. Dane caught a whiff of it; it smelled slightly sulphurous and decaying, but the leathery-skinned creature began to eat it with gusto, using his long prehensile fingers with extreme fastidious delicacy, allowing the food to rest only on the tips, and tearing it up with long strong teeth. "Why should they not treat us well? We are their profit My world is a poor one and I am seldom this well-fed, but what does the Voice of the Egg say? May his wisdom live till the suns burn out. _Surely it is better to hunt flies in a stinking swamp, and live at peace, than to feast on fine foods in a great house torn by war and strife"

Dane almost chuckled. To hear calm philosophy spoken by a huge and savage reptile-the giant, squat being turned, his teeth bared.

"Do you laugh at the wisdom of the Divine Egg, stranger?" His voice was very soft and gentle.

"By no means," Dane said, drawing back slightly. "There is a similar proverb in my own-er-my own race's Great Book of Wisdom; it says, 'Better to live in a corner of the housetop than to dwell in a broad house with a brawling woman."

"Er, hmmm," rumbled the lizard-man, "Surely all wisdom is one, my proto-simian friend. Even in slavery one may find material for philosophy, then. Yet share your laughter, friend."

Dane said, fumbling for words, "Among my people, it is thought amusing when words of peace are spoken by-by anyone of-of a warlike and fierce aspect, and by my standards you look-er-fierce. No offense meant."

"None taken," he said gently, "although surely it is the large and fierce person who needs to look and speak with peaceful wisdom, in order not to affront others, while the small and weak person proclaims his peaceful nature with his very appearance."

"It doesn't always work that way on my world," Dane said. Not in his wildest dreams had he ever thought of discussing philosophy over a shared meal with a giant reptile-no; he was obviously a man of some sort. But it was mind-boggling, certainly a Mad Tea Party if there ever was one.

"My name is Aratak," the leathery lizard-man said.

Dane told the man his name, and he repeated it thoughtfully. "I know not what a Dane may be, but a Marsh is my homeplace name, and we are therefore home-brothers, friend Marsh. Let us be brethren in misfortune, then, since all marshes are one marsh, as all seas are one sea, and all swamps are one swamp within the Cosmic All."

Dane Marsh scratched his head. There was an element of madness about this giant philosopher that he liked. "It suits me," he said.

"We shall explore one another's spiritual philosophy at leisure," Aratak said. "As for me, I have proved what I knew, but never fully believed before; that Universal Sapience is a truth and not only a spiritual philosophy. I have learned in these weeks of slavery that true brotherhood can exist between men and humanoids. I had paid only lip service to it before; it seemed to me that no true intelligence could exist in proto-simians, for they must spend so much of their metabolic cycle enslaved to their reproductive needs. Simians on my planet are only good for pets, and I had never known one in the Fellowship of the Unity before. So to all of you"-Dane and Rianna ducked as his large-clawed gesture took them all in-"my eternal thanks for an enlargement of my spiritual growth."

Roxon said somberly, "Let's hope we live long enough for the spiritual growth to do us some good in what's left of our lives," and they all fell silent again. Dane scraped his tray clean of the last morsel of food and put it aside. He felt better now. He knew where he was, and there was no immediate prospect of death or torture.

Nevertheless the prospect was anything but pleasing. All his life Dane Marsh had been a man of action, in a modern world where that takes some doing. In modern society most men walk an orderly path from the cradle to the grave, not acting so much as being acted upon; Dane had spent his whole life breaking out of that mold, and now the enforced helplessness weighed upon him with an almost personal rage. Caught up without warning, caged, equipped against his will with the damned translator disk which made a thin painless lump against the skin of his neck-it made things easier, but still it was something that had been _done to him against his will.

Now that the food was restoring his strength, the infuriating sense of helplessness was turning rapidly to anger. These people, these citizens of a great Galactic civiliza tion, might sit in their cages and wait for whatever the Mekhar slave ships did to them; he didn't intend to.

He heard, outside, the clanging sound which he had heard first when the Mekhar came into the corridor to distribute the food. He filed it away for future reference; evidently a single mechanism unlocked all the cage doors when the feeding cycle began and locked them again when it was completed. The Mekhar were evidently pretty confident in their weapons and the terror they inspired .in their prisoners, to leave the cages unlocked so long,, That knowledge might be useful later, but for the moment Dane decided to bide his time.