"Philip E. High - These Savage Futurians" - читать интересную книгу автора (High Phillip E)

As he reached level ground a solitary brown bird flew out of the tangle
ahead of him so suddenly he raised his club in self defense. He was
conscious that his skin felt tight and his breathing shallow and jerky.

"I'm frightened," he thought and experienced a brief moment of panic.
Having got down here, he wanted nothing better than to get away. Away
from the desolation, the whisper of wind and the rustle of leaves.

He looked back. The hill he had descended now looked vast and
impossible of ascent. The heap of rubble at the summit seemed to him
now dark and vaguely menacing.

He hurried forward seeking his way out of the city which had become a
maze—a maze which almost dictated his path. Here and there, streets
were so choked with weed and rubble that progress was impossible.

With the hill he had descended on his right and the sea behind him he
found himself heading inland again.

He took the remains of the protage from his pocket and began to eat as
he walked.

He came to a narrow chalky stream, forded it cautiously and climbing
the opposite bank, stopped abruptly.

Slightly ahead of him was a wide shallow depression— the word 'crater'
had not been included in his vocabulary and he thought of it simply as a
hole. From the 'hole' came a curious and somehow threatening hissing
sound.
 Warily, crouching more from instinct that experience, the club held
tightly in his hand, he crept forwards.

The first thing he saw was the man. He stood with his back to a low wall
in attitude both of desperation and defiance. He held a length of polished
metal in his hand which flashed brightly as it caught the sun but he held it
weakly as if on the point of exhaustion.

Ventnor saw the reason. The man's garments hung about his body in
bloody tatters. The half naked chest was crisscrossed with long parallel
scratches which were bleeding profusely. Occasionally the bright metal
thing in the man's hand drooped from weariness, touched the ground but
was jerked back into the guard position with obvious effort.

Ventnor edged forward a few more inches and almost instantly 'froze'
with a cold feeling in his stomach.

About twenty feet from the man in an uneven but menacing arc were
six 'things'. It was some seconds before he was able to relate the 'things' to
something familiar and then it came to him—cats!