"Alan Dean Foster - Flinx 16 - Snakes Eyes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

had gone weeks without water. Its supremely efficient, streamlined body had extended itself as far as
could be expected.

Five tiny eyes blinked expectantly, patiently back at him, ready to try to respond to his requests.
"Tooop?" it inquired hopefully. "Too-whoop?"

"Stop that. Quit lookin' at me like that, you dumb dinosaur." Come on now, Yakus. No place to get
sentimental. That's all it is, a damn dumb animal that's goin' to die soon anyhow.

Just like himself.

Yakus had spent most of his eighty-two years struggling to exist in a universe which made it much
simpler to be dead. The crystals offered him a chance to spend his few remaining days in comfort. That is,
they did if he could only bring himself to slaughter this ugly, staring, urine-colored heap of—

Something which was not a piece of cloud moved in the sky above him.

"Concentration's goin'," he muttered to himself as he fought to identify the object. Lately he'd been
muttering to himself a lot.

The shape dipped lower, cruised near on convenient thermals. Yakus was a much-traveled, observant
man. He recognized the intruder. He didn't believe his eyes, but he recognized it. It didn't belong in this
desolate place, that tiny half-legendary dispenser of instant death. But there was no mistaking that shape
and size and coloring.

Yakus was too debilitated, too worn out and despondent, to wonder what an Alaspinian minidrag was
doing in Dead-Place-on-Map in the High Desert of Moth. All he could consider now was its reputation.
No known antidote, natural or cultured, existed to counter the flying snake's venom.

He had to kill it first.

Riding air currents, the creature swooped lower. Yakus raised the needier. Reflexively his gaze went to
the weapon's handle, automatically took in the reading on the built-in gauge.


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 Foster, Alan Dean - Commonwealth 16 - Flinx - Snakes Eyes (SS) (v1.0)

Empty.

Despair.

He'd used his last charge in the weapon to kill the skipgravel.

Too frustrated to scream and too dehydrated to cry, he reversed the weapon. Hefting it by its narrow
barrel, he wielded it like a club. It was an impractical gesture, but it made him feel a little less helpless.

"By God, it figures," he murmured exhaustedly. "Kill me then, apparition," he instructed the
approaching winged form. "You'll be quicker, at least."