"Harry Harrison - Deathworld 2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

As he started forward the ship lurched again and all the lights went out. In the darkness, flames could be seen flashing inside the controls. There was a hiss of foam and they vanished. With a weak flicker the emergency lighting circuit came on.
“I shouldn’t have thrown the Ramon Lull book,” Jason said. “The ship can’t stomach it any more than I could.”
“You are irreverent and profane,” Mikah said through his clenched teeth, as he went to the controls. “You attempt to kill us both. You have no respect for your own life or mine. You are a man who deserves the worst punishment the law allows.”
“I’m a gambler,” Jason laughed, “not at all as bad as you say. I take chances—but I only take them when the odds are right. You were carrying me back to certain death. The worst my wrecking the controls can do is to administer the same fate. So I took a chance. There is a bigger risk factor for you, of course, but I’m afraid I didn’t take that into consideration. After all, this entire affair is your idea. You’ll just have to take the consequences of your own actions, and not scold me for them.”
“You are perfectly right,” Mikah said quietly. “I should have been more alert. Now will you tell me what to do to save both our lives. None of the controls work.”
“None! Did you try the emergency override? The big red switch under the safety housing.”
“I did. It is dead too.”
Jason slumped back into the seat. It was a moment before he could speak. “Read one of your books, Mikah,” he said at last. “Seek consolation in your philosophy. There’s nothing we can do. It’s all up to the computer now, and whatever is left of the circuits.”
“Can we help—can we repair anything?”
“Are you a ship technician? I’m not. We would probably do more harm than good.”

It took two ship-days of very erratic flight to reach the planet. A haze of clouds obscured the atmosphere. They approached from the night side, and no details were visible. Or lights.
“If there were cities we would see their lights—wouldn’t we?” Mikah asked.
“Not necessarily. Could be storms. Could be enclosed cities. Could be only ocean in this hemisphere.”
“Or it could be that there are no people down there,” Mikah said. “Even if the ship should get us down safely, what will it matter? We will be trapped for the rest of our lives on this lost planet, at the end of the universe.”
“Don’t be so cheerful,” Jason said. “How about taking off these cuffs while we go down? It will probably be a rough landing and I’d like to have some kind of a chance.”
Mikah frowned at him. ‘Will you give me your word of honor that you will not try to escape during the landing?”
“No. And if I gave it—would you believe it? If you let me loose, you take your chances. Let’s neither of us think it will be any different.”
“I have my duty to do,” Mikah said. Jason remained locked in the chair.
They were in the atmosphere, and the gentle sighing against the hull quickly climbed the scale to a shrill scream. The drive cut out and they were in free fall. Air friction heated the outer hull white-hot, and the interior temperature quickly rose in spite of the cooling unit.
“What is happening?” Mikah asked. “You are more acquainted with these matters. Are we through—are we going to crash?”
“Maybe. It can only be one of two things. Either the whole works have folded up_in which case we are going to be scattered in very small pieces all over the landscape; or the computer is saving itself for one last effort. I hope that’s it. They build computers smart these days, all sorts of problem-solving circuits. The hull and engines are in good shape—but the controls are spotty and unreliable. In a case like this, a good human pilot would let the ship drop as far and fast as it could before switching on the drive. Then he’d turn it on full—thirteen C’s or more, whatever he figured the passengers could take on the couches. The hull would take a beating, but who cares? The control circuits would be used the shortest amount of time in the simplest manner.”
“Do you think that is happening now?” Mikah asked, getting into his acceleration chair.
“That’s what I hope is happening. Are you going to unlock the cuffs before you go to bed? It could be a bad landing, and we might want to go places in a hurry.”
Mikah considered, then took out his gun. “I will unlock you, but I intend to shoot if you try anything. Once we are down, you will be locked in again.”
“Thanks for small blessings,” Jason said when he was free, rubbing his wrists.
Deceleration jumped on them~ kicked the air from their lungs in uncontrollable gasps, sank them deep into the yielding couches. Mikah’s gun was pressed into his chest, too heavy to lift. It made no difference—Jason could not stand nor move. He hovered on the border of consciousness, his vision flickering behind a black and red haze.
Just as suddenly the pressure was gone.
They were still falling.
The drive groaned in the stern of the ship, and relays chattered. But it didn’t start again. The two men stared at each other, unmoving, for the unmeasurable unit of time that the ship fell.
As the ship dropped it turned, and it hit at an angle. The end came for Jason in an engulfing wave of thunder, shock, and pain. The sudden impact pushed him against the restraining straps, burst them with the inertia of his body, hurled him across the control room. His last conscious thought was to protect his head. He was lifting his arms when he struck the wall.

There is a cold that is so chilling it is a pain, not a temperature. A cold that slices into the flesh before it numbs and kills.
Jason came to with the sound of his own voice crying hoarsely. The cold was so great it filled the universe. It was cold water, he realized as he coughed it from his mouth and nose. Something was around him, and it took an effort to recognize it as Mikah’s arm; he was holding Jason’s face above the surface while he swam. A receding blackness in the water could only have been the ship, giving off bubbles and groans as it died. The cold water didn’t hurt now, and Jason was just relaxing when he felt something solid under his feet.
“Stand up and walk, curse you,” Mikah gasped hoarsely. “I can’t carry you. . . can’t carry myself. . . .“
They floundered out of the water side by side, four-legged crawling beasts that could not stand erect. Everything had an unreality about it, and Jason found it hard to think. He should not stop, that he was sure of, but what else could he do?
There was a flickering in the darkness, a wavering light coming towards them. Jason could not speak, but he heard Mikah cry out for help. The light came nearer; it was some kind of flare or torch, held high. Mikah pulled to his feet as the flame approached.
It was like a nightmare. It wasn’t a man but a thing that held the flare. A thing of sharp angles, fang-faced and horrible. It had a clubbed extremity with which it struck down Mikah, who fell wordlessly, and the creature turned towards Jason. He had no strength to fight with, though he struggled to get to his feet. His fingers scratched at the frosted sand, but he could not rise; and exhausted with this last effort, he fell face down.
Unconsciousness pulled at his brain, but he would not submit. The ffickering torchlight came closer, and the scuffle of heavy feet in the sand. He could not have this horror behind him, and with the last of his strength he levered himself over and lay on his back, staring up at the thing that stood over him, with the darkness of exhaustion filming his eyes.






4
It did not kill him at once, but stood staring down at him; and as the slow seconds ticked by and Jason was still alive, he forced himself to consider this menace that had appeared from the blackness.
“K’e vi stas el . . . ?“ the creature said, and for the first time Jason realized it was human. The meaning of the question picked at the edge of his exhausted brain; he felt he could almost understand it, though he had never heard the language before. He tried to answer, but there was only a hoarse gurgle from his throat.
‘Yen k’n torcoy—r’piclu!”
More lights sprang from the darkness inland, and with them the sound of running feet. As they came closer, Jason had a clearer look at the man above him and could understand why he had mistaken him for some non-human creature. His limbs were completely wrapped in lengths of stained leather, his chest and body protected by thick overlapping leather plates covered with blood-red designs. Over his head was fitted the cochleate-shell of some animal, spiraling to a point in