"Andre Norton - Astra 01 - The Stars Are Ours!" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

"I hope that the fox gets home to his den before the snow comes. He will, won't he?"

"Of course he will. We'd better, too. Let's try to run, Dessie--here along the trail--"

She regarded doubtfully the almost shapeless blobs of wrappings which concealed her feet. "My feet don't run very well, Dardie. Too many coverings on them, maybe. And they're cold now-"

Not frostbite--not frostbite! he prayed. They had been lucky so far. Of course they were always cold, and very often hungry. But they had had no accidents, nor serious illnesses.

"Run!" he commanded sharply, and Dessie's short-legged shuffle became a trot.

But, when they reached the screen of second-growth brush at the end of the north field, she halted in obedience to old orders. Dard shrugged off the bundle of firewood and dropped to his hands and knees, crawling forward under cover until he could look down across the broken field-stone wall to the house.

Carefully he examined the sweep of snow about the half-ruined dwelling. There were the tracks he and Dessie had made about the yard. But the smooth expanse of white between house and main road was unbroken. There had been no invaders since they had left. Thankfully, though without any lessening of his habitual apprehension, he went back to gather up the wood.

"All right?" Dessie shifted impatiently from one cold foot to the other.

"All right."

She jerked the sled into motion and plodded on along the wall where the snow had not drifted. There was a faint gleam of light in one of the windows below. Lars must be in the kitchen. Minutes later they stamped off snow and went in.

Lars Nordis raised his head as his daughter and then his brother entered. His smile of welcome was hardly more than a stretch of parchment skin over thrusting bones and Dard's secret fear deepened as he studied Lars anxiously. They were always hungry, hut tonight Lars had the appearance of a man in the last stages of starvation.

"Good haul?" he asked Dard as the boy began to shed his first layer of the sacking which served him as a coat.

"Good as we could do without the axe. Dessie got a lot of pine cones."

Lars swung around to his daughter who had squatted down before the small fire on the hearth where she began to methodically unwind the strips of burlap which were her mittens.

"Now that was lucky! Did you see anything interesting, Dessie?" He spoke to her as he might have addressed an adult.

"Just a fox." she reported gravely. "It was watching us-- from under a tree. It looked cold--but Dardie said it had a home--"

"So it did, honey," Lars assured her. "A 1ittle cave or a hollow tree."

"I wish I could have brought it home. It would be nice to have a fox or a squirrel--or something-to live with us." She stretched her small, grime-encrusted, chapped hands out to the fire.

"Maybe someday . . ." Lars' voice trailed oil He stared across Dessie's head at the scanty flames.

Dard hung up the cobbled mass of tatters which was his outdoor coat and went to the cupboard. He lifted down an unwholesome block of salted meat as his brother spoke again.

"How are supplies?"

Dard tensed. There was more to that question than was merely routine. He surveyed the pitiful array on the shelves jealously.

"How much?" he asked, unable to keep out of his voice the almost despairing resentment he felt.

"Maybe enough for two days-if you can put up such a packet."

Swiftly Dard's eyes measured and portioned. "If it is really necessary-" he couldn't stop that half-protest. This systematic robbing of their own, too scanty hoard-for what? If Lars would only explain! But he knew Lars' answer to that, too: The less one knew, the better, these days. Even in a family that could be so. All right, he'd make up that packet of food and leave it here on the table and in the morning it would he gone--given to someone be didn't know and would never see. And within a week, or maybe a month it would happen again ....