"Eric Frank Russell - The Rhythm of the Rats" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russell Eric Frank)

explored the hamlet, studied its houses, its people. The longer I looked at them the
more depressed I felt. Their abodes were strangely devoid of joy. The folk were
quite uncommunicative without being openly unsociable. None spoke to me, though
several women looked with the same hungry horror displayed by the one in Hansi's
house. It was almost as if they desired something long forbidden and triply
accursed, something of which I was the living witness, therefore to be both wanted
and feared.
My own uneasiness grew toward twilight. It was the accumulative effect of all this
unnaturalness plus the gradual realization that the village was lacking in certain
respects. It had vacuums other than spiritual ones. Certain features normal to village
life were missing; I could feel them missing without being able to decide what they
were.
Not until dusk began to spread and I reached the door of Hansi's house did it
come to my mind that no truly domestic animals had been visible. The place was
devoid of them. I had seen a small herd of cattle and a few mountain goats, but not
one cat, not one dog.
A moment later it struck me with awful force that neither had I seen a child. That
was what was wrong—not a child!
Indoors, the tall woman gave me supper, early though the hour. As before, she
hung around pathetically wanting and not-wanting. Once she patted my shoulder as if
to say, "There! There!" then hurriedly whipped her hand away. My mind concocted
a scarey notion of her quandary; that to give comfort was to pass sentence of death.
It frightened me. How foolish it is to frighten oneself.
Soon after total darkness Hansi came in, glanced at me, asked the woman, "Are
the casements fastened? All of them?"
"Yes, I have seen to them myself."
It did not satisfy him. Methodically he went around trying the lot, upstairs and
downstairs. The woman seemed to approve rather than resent this implied slur upon
her capabilities. After testing each and every latch and lock, Hansi departed without
another word.
Selecting a couple of books from the case, I bore them up to my room, closed
the door, examined the window. The latch had been so shaped as to fit into a hasp,
and the padlock linking the two was far beyond my strength to force open. So far as
could be told, all other windows were secured in similar manner.
The place was a prison. Or perhaps a madhouse. Did they secretly consider me
insane? Could it be that they had not actually gone to the wrecked plane because
they thought my story a lunatic's fancy? Or, conversely, were they themselves not of
sound mind? Had fate plunged me into some sort of national reservation for people
who were unbalanced? If so, when—and how— was I going to escape?
Beyond my window ran a footpath edging the gloomy firs and pines that mounted
to the top of a hill. The woods were thick, the path narrow and shadowy, but a rising
moon gradually illuminated the lot until one could see clearly. It was there, right
outside my window, that I saw what will remain in my worst dreams forever.
The books had amused me for three hours with a compost of outlandish stories
and simply expressed folk tales of such a style that evidently they were intended for
juveniles. Tiring, I turned down the oil-lamp, had a last look out of the window
before going to bed.
The two men were strolling along the path, one bearing a thick cudgel held ready
on his shoulder, the other carrying a gun. Opposite my window they paused, looked
into the trees. Their attitudes suggested expectancy, wariness and stubborn