"Andre Norton - Crosstime 1 - Quest Crosstime" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

Scanned by Highroller.
Proofed more or less by Highroller.
Made prettier by use of EBook Design Group Stylesheet.
Quest Crosstime by Andre
Norton
I
The land bepelled. Not because of any raw breakage, for the rocky
waste was contoured by wind and storm, the wind and water of passing
centuries. But those gray, red-brown, lime-white strata were only that:
bare stone. And their colors were muted, somber. Even the sea waves,
washing with constant booming force at the foot of the cliff, were a steely
shade today under the massing clouds of another storm. It was a world
completely alienated from the present struggle centered in a cluster of
green hemispheres in the river valley below; a world which had had no
dealing with humankind, nor with animals, nor birds, nor reptiles, nor
even the simplest forms of celled life such as might float in the water. For
this was a world in which no spore of life had ever dwelt—sterile
rock—until man, with his restless drive for change, had chosen to trouble
its austerity.
The storm now gathering would be a bad one. Marfy Rogan looked up
at the piling clouds, assessed the growing twilight they brought. She was a
fool to linger here. Still… She did not get to her feet. Instead, she leaned
forward in the niche she had found, rested her forehead on the crook of
her arm, pressing her shoulder against the harsh surface of the supporting
rock. Her body was tense with the effort she put into her searching probe.
In her, what had begun as a momentary uneasiness had long since grown
into a fire of fear.
"Marva!" Her lips moved soundlessly as she sent that cry, by another
method than speech, out into the vast v/ifcfercvess of this lifeless
successor world. The sea's clamor might even have drowned out a shout,
but it could not deter the call she sent mind to mind. Only—that receptive
other mind was not there!

And that silence meant a contradiction which was the root of her fear.
For among the other equipment fastened to the belt of her work suit was a
small instrument ticking serenely away, reporting that all was well, that
Marva, to whose body it was—or had been—tuned, was going about her
business in a normal way. Had been tuned…
Any change in that personality setting would indicate willful
interference. What would be the cause of such a starkly mad act?
Naturally, those on the field trip would take cover when they saw the
storm warnings and not try to return to Headquarters. But distance was
no barrier to the tie between the twin sisters, no reasonable distance. And
the 'copter was neither supplied nor prepared to make any long trek over
the unending desert of rock.
Marva's personnel disk reported all well with her, but Marfy's mind and
inner sense denied that vehemently. And of the two, she depended first
upon her own senses. Yet the disk testified against her.
Had there been anyone down in the camp other than Isin Kutur, Marfy
would have been spilling out her worries an hour ago. But he made it so