"Henry Kuttner & C. L. Moore - Earth' s last Citadel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kuttner Henry)

that were not

there. Deliberately Alan crossed to the curved wall. He wanted something solid at his back.
Curiously, he noticed that his feet roused no echoes in all that vast, hollow place. Walking on
steel as if he walked on velvet, he carried his load of guns toward the great circular crack in
the outer wall that outlined the closed door they had entered through. Mike and Karen watched him
dazedly. Beyond them, Sir Colin was sitting up, blinking.

Mike's eyes were on the gun that Alan held steadily. He said:

"Karen, what's up? Were we gassed?" And his voice was rusty too, unused.

Sir Colin's burred tones almost creaked as he spoke. Faint echoes roused among the shadows
overhead. "Maybe we were," he said. "Maybe we were."

There was silence. Four people had dreamed the same dream, or a part of it. They were groping in
their memories now, and finding no more than Alan had found to judge by their bewildered faces.
Presently Karen shook her red head and said:

"I want my gun back."

Sir Colin was staring about, uneasily rubbing his beard. 'Wait," he said. "Things have changed,
you know."

"Things may have changed," the girl said, and took a step toward Alan. "But I still have my job to
do."

"For Germany," Alan murmured, and gently covered the revolver's trigger with his middle finger.
"Better stay where you are, Karen. I don't trust you."

SirColin's eyes were troubled under the shaggy reddish brows. I'm not so sure there is a Germany,"
he said bluntly. "There's—"

Alan saw the almost imperceptible signal Karen gave.

Mike Smith had apparently been paying little attention to the dialogue. But now, without an
instant's warning, he flung himself forward in a long smooth leap toward Alan. No—to Alan's left.
The revolver had swung in a little arc before Alan realized his mistake. He saw Karen coming at
him and swept the gun in a vicious blow at her head.

He didn't want to kill her—merely to put her out of the picture so that he could attend to Smith.
But Karen's movement had been startling swift. She slid under the swinging gun, twisted sidewise,
and suddenly she had crashed into him with the full weight of her body, jolting him back hard
against the closed port. Alan stumbled, and felt the door slip smoothly away. He swayed on his
heels against empty air. Mike Smith was coming in, lithe and boneless as a big cat, a joyous
little smile on his face.

Motion slowed down, then. For Alan, it always slowed down in moments like this, so that he could
see everything at once and act with lightning deliberation. Hard ground crunched under his heels
as he pivoted and put all his force into a smashing blow that caught Mike Smith heavily across the