"Murray Leinster - Planets of Adventure" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

was not quite capable of distinguishing clearly between reality and dreams; so he tried to
duplicate what happened in the dream. Remembering that it had stuck into the
mushroom-stalk, he thrust it. It stabbed. He remembered distinctly how the larger beetle
had used its horn as a weapon. It had stabbed, too.
He considered absorbedly. He could not imagine himself fighting one of the
dangerous insects, of course. Men did not fight, on the forgotten planet. They ran away.
They hid. But somehow Burl formed a fantastic picture of himself stabbing food with this
horn, as he had stabbed a mushroom. It was longer than his arm and though naturally
clumsy in his hand, it would have been a deadly weapon in the grip of a man prepared to
do battle.
Battle did not occur to Burl. But the idea of stabbing food with it was clear. There
could be food that would not fight back. Presently he had an inspiration. His face
brightened. He began to make his way toward the tiny river that ran across the plain in
which the tribe of humans lived by foraging in competition with the ants. Yellowbellied
newts—big enough to be lusted for—swam in its waters. The swimming larvae of a
thousand kinds of creatures floated on the sluggish surface or crawled over the bottom.
There were deadly things there, too. Giant crayfish snapped their claws at the unwary.
One of them could sever Burl's arm with ease. Mosquitoes sometimes hummed high
above the river. Mosquitoes had a four-inch wingspread, now, though they were dying
out for lack of plant juices on which the males of their species fed. But they were
formidable. Burl had learned to crush them between fragments of fungus.
He crept slowly through the forest of toadstools. What should have been grass
underfoot was brownish rust. Orange and red and purple molds clustered about the bases
of the creamy mushroom-trunks. Once, Burl paused to run his weapon through a fleshy
column and reassure himself that what he planned was possible.
He made his way furtively through the bulbous growths. Once he heard clickings and
froze to stillness. Four or five ants, minims only eight inches long, were returning by a
habitual pathway to their city. They moved sturdily along, heavily laden, over the route
marked by the scent of formic acid left by their fellow-townsmen. Burl waited until they
had passed, then went on.
He came to the bank of the river. It flowed slowly, green scum covering a great deal
of its surface in the backwaters, occasionally broken by a slowly enlarging bubble
released from decomposing matter on the bottom. In the center of the stream the current
ran a little more swiftly and the water itself seemed clear. Over it ran many water-spiders.
They had not shared in the general increase of size in the insect world. Depending as they
did on the surface tension of the water for support, to have grown larger and heavier
would have destroyed them.
Burl surveyed the scene. His search was four parts for danger and only one part for a
way to test his brilliant notion, but that was natural. Where he stood, the green scum
covered the stream for many yards. Down-river a little, though, the current came closer to
the bank. Here he could not see whatever swam or crawled or wriggled underwater; there
he might.
There was an outcropping rock forming a support for crawling stuff, which in turn
supported shelf-fungi making wide steps almost down to the water's edge. Burl was
making his way cautiously toward them when he saw one of the edible mushrooms which
formed so large a part of his diet. He paused to break off a flabby white piece large
enough to feed him for many days. It was the custom of his people, when they found a
store of food, to hide with it and not venture out again to danger until it was all eaten.
Burl was tempted to do just that with his booty. He could give Saya of this food and they
would eat together. They might hide together until it was all consumed.