"Richard Hatch - Battlestar Galactica 5 - Paradis" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hatch Richard)

 Some of the insects were as large as a human hand. The living shapes
disappeared, leaving behind fluttering memories of crimson and
turquoise, of bright green and dark purple. The animal seemed to be in no
hurry. Sated, it turned away even though a third of the insects were left.

One of them flew into GarTokk's grizzled face. He reached out and
gingerly held a yellow wing between his large fingers. A whiff of something
sweet surprised him. Now he recognized the source of some of the
interesting scents he had noticed when running on the forest path—as if
the scents were flowers of the air, seeding the sky with perfume.

This planet was too tempting to be real.

He released the wing and watched a blur of yellow flit out of sight.
Gar'Tokk suddenly felt thirsty. He saw that the insect headed toward a
source of water much nearer than the silver string of river in the distance.

A brief jog and he was at a small creek. A clump of trees provided shade
and he wondered if the reddish boles owed something to the radiance of
the red sun.

He dipped his hand in cool water and let his fingers rest there for a
moment before bringing a drink to his mouth. It tasted better than
anything he'd ever had. Greedily, he scooped up more mouthfuls. He was
about to dive in and treat himself to a swim when something gave him
pause.

He saw his own reflection.

For the first time in his life, there was something wrong about his
reflection. He witnessed raw desire for Paradis on his face, reflected back
to him from a pool that he suddenly felt he was defiling.

There was something cruel around the corners of his mouth. There was
something blank about his eyes. What was this planet doing to him?

No sooner did the thought cross his mind than he rejected it. The
proper question had a different subject and object: what was he going to
do to the planet?

Gar'Tokk cut his run short even though he still felt the elation down
deep where his mind couldn't spoil it. He retraced his steps but this time
he walked at a deliberately slow pace, paying attention to every detail—the
leaves, the shrubs, the emerald lizards darting out of sight.

When he returned, Apollo was completing his meeting with Yarto, the
native leader who had met him as the first human to set foot on Paradis.
They were developing a workable sign language; but it was no substitute
for Gar'Tokk's facility with much of the Gamon language… and a growing
telepathic link.