"Murray Leinster - Propagandist" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

"If anybody wants to volunteer to get biological specimens," said Maynard, "he can step out. In case of
alarm, though, I'm going to take this boat up and try to wriggle back—to find out what they'll try to use
to stop us." ;

Voices answered. There was the clanking of an unlocking door. Buck trotted back to it. Fascinating
smells came in the opening. Men stepped out—armed and cautious. The exit door stayed open. One man
stood by to shut and dog it if the lifeboat shot skyward.

It took courage for men to venture out, knowing that they might have to be abandoned so the lifeboat's
mission of drawing enemy fire—if this race was inimical—could be carried out. But Buck was
fascinated by the smells. He would have liked to get back to Holden, of course, but these men were his
friends, too. If they went out into this place of innumerable novel smells—

He jumped lightly to the ground. His nose was in-

stantly busy. The ground had a different smell from that of Earth. The plants were new. There were
scents which must be animals, but not any animals Buck- had ever scented before. He heard a man
moving nearby, taking samples of vegetation. Very much could be inferred from the types of starch and
cellulose this planet's vegetation contained. But Buck could 'have told much more, from what his nose
discovered. Here a little carnivore had trailed a skittering small thing which periodically darted up into
overhanging vegetation, and as periodically darted down again. There a small herbivore had made a
vast, terrified leap for no apparent reason—which meant that a flying thing had made a swoop at it, and
missed. And here a thing which had almost the smell of a snake moved in distinctive hops, while there
was a definite smell of a warm-blooded animal in something which left a completely continuous trail by
traveling on its belly.

Buck explored, utterly absorbed in this world of literally new smells. From time to time he heard the
sounds made by the men, and was reassured. But he strayed farther and farther from the grounded
lifeboat—only sometimes he stopped and listened to it— and he had found the burrow of some living
creature and was sniffing absorbedly at its entrance when the really significant noises began.

One noise began at the horizon and swept toward the zenith. It was a dull, humming rumble, like the

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motors of atmosphere fliers Buck had heard back on Earth. It was mechanical and, therefore, of man,
and, therefore, not to be feared or suspected. At the same time there came distant clankings. And they
were like bulldozers and other machines of men, and they were not to be feared, either. Buck sniffed
fascinatedly at the burrow.

Men's voices called sharply. Had Holden called him, Buck would have gone bounding instantly. But he
owed a lesser obedience to other men. He sniffed again and again, lingeringly. Then, as he trotted
unhurriedly

in response to the call, he heard the zooming roar of a lifeboat drive in atmosphere. It shot toward the
sky. It did not occur to Buck that he might have had to be left behind—as a man would have been
abandoned under like circumstances—because the lifeboat had to test out the deadliness of armaments
on this planet, but had to be aloft to test them fully.