"H. Beam Piper - Fuzzy Papers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piper H Beam)

blankets. Besides being a most efficient land-prawn eradicator, he made a first rate alarm clock. But best
of all, he was Pappy Jack's Little Fuzzy. He wanted out; this time Jack took his movie camera and got
the whole operation on film. One thing, there'd have to be a little door, with a spring to hold it shut, that
Little Fuzzy could operate himself. That was designed during breakfast. It only took a couple of hours to
make and install it; Little Fuzzy got the idea as soon as he saw it, and figured out how to work it for
himself.

Jack went back to the workshop, built a fire on the hand forge and forged a pointed and rather
broad blade, four inches long, on the end of a foot of quarter-inch round tool-steel. It was too
point-heavy when finished, so he welded a knob on the other end to balance it.

Little Fuzzy knew what that was for right away; running outside, he dug a couple of practice holes
with it, and then began casting about in the grass for land-prawns.

Jack followed him with the camera and got movies of a couple of prawn killings, accomplished with
smooth, by-the-numbers precision. Little Fuzzy hadn't learned that chop-slap-slap routine in the week
since he had found the wood chisel.

Going into the shed, he hunted for something without more than a general idea of what it would look
like, and found it where Little Fuzzy had discarded it when he found the chisel. It was a stock of
hardwood a foot long, rubbed down and polished smooth, apparently with sandstone. There was a
paddle at one end, with enough of an edge to behead a prawn, and the other end had been worked to a
point. He took it into the living hut and sat down at the desk to ex amine it with a magnifying glass. Bits of
soil embedded in the sharp end-that had been used as a pick. The paddle end had been used as a shovel,
beheader and shell-cracker. Little Fuzzy had known exactly what he wanted when he'd started making
that thing, he'd kept on until it was as perfect as possible, and had stopped short of spoiling it by
overrefinement.
Finally, Jack put it away in the top drawer of the desk. He was thinking about what to get for lunch when
Little Fuzzy burst into the living room, clutching his new weapon and yeeking excitedly.

"What's the matter, kid? You got troubles?" He rose and went to the gunrack, picking down a rifle and
checking the chamber. "Show Pappy Jack what it is."

Little Fuzzy followed him to the big door for human-type people, ready to bolt back inside if necessary.
The trouble was a harpy - a thing about the size and general design of a Terran Jurassic pterodactyl, big
enough to take a Little Fuzzy at one mouthful. It must have made one swoop at him already, and was
circling back for another. It ran into a 6-min. rifle bullet, went into a backward loop and dropped like a
stone.

Little Fuzzy made a very surprised remark, looked at the dead harpy for a moment and then spotted the
ejected empty cartridge. He grabbed itund held it up, asking if he could have it. When told that he could,
he ran back to the bedroom with it. When he returned, Pappy Jack picked him up and carried him to the
hangar and up into the control cabin of the manipulator.

The throbbing of the contragravity-field generator and the sense of rising worried him at first, but after
they had picked up the harpy with the grapples and risen to five hundred feet he began to enjoy the ride.
They dropped the harpy a couple of miles up what the latest maps were designating as Holloway's Run,
and then made a wide cir-cle back over the mountains. Little Fuzzy thought it was fun.

After lunch, Little Fuzzy had a nap on Pappy Jack's bed. Jack took the manipulator up to the diggings,