"Norton, Andre - Solar Queen 03- Voodoo Planet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

us?"

"He waves his spell with the drums, with the chant, by the suggestion his mind imposes upon yours. And,
having woven his spell, he cannot limit it to just the picture he suggests if ancient racial memories raise
another. I merely used the tools of Lumbrilo to show you yet another picture your people once knew well."

"And in so doing made an enemy." Asaki stood before a rack of very modern weapons. Now he made his
selection, a silver tube with a stock curved to fit a man's shoulder. "Lumbrilo will not forget."

Tau laughed shortly. "No, but then I have merely done as you wished, have I not, sir? I have focused on
myself the enmity of a dangerous man, and now you hope I shall be forced, in self-defense, to remove him
from your path."

The Khatkan turned slowly, resting the weapon across his forearm. "I do not deny that, spaceman."

"Then matters here are indeed serious--"

"They are so serious," Asaki interrupted, speaking not only to Tau but to the other off-worlders as well,
"that what happens now may mean the end of the Khatka that I know. Lumbrilo is the most dangerous
game I have faced in a lifetime as a hunter. He goes, or we draw his fangs--or else all that I am, all I have
labored here to build, will be swept away. To preserve this I will use any weapon."

"And I am now your weapon, which you hope will be as successful as that needler you are carrying." Tau
laughed again, without much humor. "Let us hope I shall prove as effective."

Jellico moved out of the shadows. It was just after dawn, and the grayness of the vanishing night still held
in the corners of the armory. Deliberately he took his own stand before the arms racks and chose a short-
barreled blaster. Only when its butt was cupped in his hand did he glance at his host.

"We came guesting, Asaki. We have eaten salt and bread under this roof."

"On my body and my blood it is," returned the Khatkan grimly. "I shall go down to the blackness of Sabra
before you do, if the flames of death are against us." From his belt he flipped loose his knife and offered
the hilt to Jellico. "My body for a wall between you and the dark, Captain. But also understand this: to me,
what I do now is greater than the life of any one man. Lumbrilo and the evil behind him must be rooted
out. There was no trickery in my invitation!"

They stood eye to eye, equal in height, in authority of person, and that indefinable something which made
them both masters in their own different worlds. Then Jellico's hand went out, his fingertip flicked the hilt
of the bared blade.
"There was no trickery," he conceded. "I knew that your need was great when you came to the Queen."

Since both the captain and Tau appeared to accept the situation, Dane, not quite understanding it all, was
prepared to follow their lead. And for the moment they had nothing more in plan than to visit the Zoboru
preserve.

They went by flitter--Asaki, one of his Hunter pilots, and the three from the Queen--lifting over the rim
of mountains behind the fortress-palace and speeding north with the rising sun a flaming ball to the east.
Below, the country was stark--rocks and peaks, deep purple shadows marking the veins of crevices. But
that was swiftly behind and they were over a sea of greens, many shades of green, with yellow, blue, even