"061 (B050) - Devil on the Moon (1938-03) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

"What about Vesterate?"
"No sign of him."
"I'll talk to the girl," Lurgent growled.
Lurgent seized Lin Pretti's wrist and bent it cruelly, while two men held the girl and a third kept a cap jammed over her mouth so that her sounds of agony would not be too loud.
"Don't think you'll get anything out of her that way," Behemoth remonstrated.
Lurgent turned, seemed on the point of snarling something, then reconsidered. "Maybe you're right. We'll keep her with us a while."
"Sure. Good idea."
"The green man—Vesterate—worries me." Lurgent picked at his teeth with a fingernail. "Look, Behemoth, go back to that hotel and see if Vesterate shows up. Try to find him."
"Where'll I meet you?"
"Join us at that tourist camp."
"Are you taking the girl there?"
"No. That wouldn't be safe. I'll take her to another place."
Nodding as if satisfied, Behemoth ambled off. He made some noise this time, and Lurgent's men heard him progress well up the hill before the sounds he was making were no longer audible.
"We better be skipping with the girl," a man suggested.
Lurgent made a growling sound. "If you think the girl stays alive, you're crazy!"
"Huh?"
"I'm a kind guy at heart," Lurgent said dryly. "I was sparing Behemoth's feelings. We'll tie the girl, then throw her in the inlet—with her ex-boy friend."
The men squirmed uneasily at this callous talk of killing the girl.
"Listen, Lurgent, is that necessary to . . ."
"Her actions proved just what she is. You know the orders, when we get hold of one of her kind."
The other shuddered.
They found a large rock that was misshapen enough to be tied to the girl with no likelihood of slipping free. They lashed it to her ankles, then carried the young woman to the edge of the inlet.
Two of the men, one on each side, held the girl, and Lurgent said, "All together! One, two—swing her!"
The young woman struck the surface feet first. After she disappeared, one very large bubble came up along with other bubbles that were smaller. The men hurried away as if they did not want to see the bubbles.
Chapter IV. BEHEMOTH, QUEER MAN
IT was somewhat later in the night—a bit over an hour—and two voices were conversing tensely in the darkness. One was Behemoth.
". . . It might save a great deal of trouble," Behemoth was saying.
"No," said the other speaker. "You're wasting your time."
"You won't tell me what is behind this thing?"
"I won't tell you anything."
Behemoth seemed patient enough. "Who was the green man—Vesterate or whatever his name was?"
Silence replied.
"What did that stuff about the moon mean?"
More silence.
"Where is the green man?" Behemoth asked.
"I told you, you're wasting your time!" insisted the other voice.
"How about telling me what that little blue glass capsule means?"
A shaky sigh was the only response to this query.
"That's gratitude!" Behemoth complained. "Not only do I pull you out of that inlet after Lurgent threw you in, but I work over you half an hour before you revive."
"Thank you!" said Lin Pretti.
Behemoth made a growling noise. "Too bad I gotta keep my hands off Lurgent!"
"Do you?"
"Course! And to clear up some doubts in your mind—here's why. By getting into Lurgent's gang and pretending to be one of the gang, I hope to learn what's behind this. Suppose you tell me your story."
"What do you want to know?"
"The whole thing. Then I'll give you what I've learned. We'll swap information and maybe have something."
Lin Pretti shuddered. "It's all so horrible—so impossible. Those things—I still can't think they're men—yet they look like men, only their terrible green garments . . ."
"Wait a minute! What the heck kind of talk is this?"
"The first one came over a year ago." The girl seemed to have trouble controlling her voice. "It was first seen—in my country. No one knew what it was. The initial reports were simply of a man-figure dressed in green tights. Then—then . . ."
"I wonder who's kidding who, here," Behemoth muttered.
"First a man was found dead, then a woman," Lin Pretti continued. "Later two more men—it was terrible! They all died the same way—their bodies becoming a deep blue. And doctors could not explain it."