"C. S. Friedman - Coldfire 2 - When True Night Falls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friedman C. S)

standing watch over the ship and its contents a good mile
away. They would have been especially vulnerable, Case
thought, if their enemy was not a creature of Erna, like they
expected, but one of their own kind. A glib man who might
talk his way into their company, and then strike at them
from behind when they least expected it.

His mouth tightened into a hard line as he raised the
gun. "That's proof enough for me."

Sudden understanding gleamed in Ian's eyes.
Understanding . . . and fear. "Leo, listen to me-"

"The charge is endangering the welfare of the colony,"
Case said steadily. "The verdict is guilty." Something
tightened inside him, something cold and sharp. Something
that hated killing, even in the name of justice. It took effort
to get the words out. "The sentence is death."

It's not a killing, he told himself. It's an excision. A
cleansing. Ian had to die so that the rest of them could live.
Was that murder?

Call it a sacrifice.

"Listen to me," the botanist protested. "You don't know
what you're doing-"
 "Don't I?" he asked angrily. With the toe of one boot he
kicked at the nearer side of Ian's circle, erasing the chalk
line. "Damn it, man! This isn't some primitive tribe in need
of a shaman, but a colony in desperate need of unity! I have
enough trouble from the outside without having to guard
against my own people-"

"And how many more deaths can you absorb?" the
botanist demanded. "You know as well as I do that the
death rate is increasing geometrically. How many more
nights does this colony have before it loses the numbers it
needs to maintain a viable gene pool?"

"Two Terran months," he answered gruffly. "But we'll
learn how to fight these creatures. We'll learn how to-"

"Erna will create new ones as fast as you destroy the
old! And if you learn to kill one kind, then the next will be
different. Don't you see, Leo, it's the planet you're fighting,
the planet itself! Some force that controls the local
ecosphere, keeping everything in balance. It doesn't know
how to absorb us. It doesn't know how to connect. But it's
going to keep trying." With a shaking hand he brushed back