"Christopher Stasheff - Warlock 13 - Warlock's Last Ride" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stasheff Christopher)

and pressed it against the back, where it fastened and clung with a grip that couldn't be shaken even if
the ship were smashed to filings. She could feel the pressure of descent, feel that pressure lift as
Herkimer countered it with artificial gravity, felt the tug-of-war of natural forces against synthetic ones,
as the huge disk on the screen expanded past its edges and was somehow no longer in front of them, but
below, rivers and mountain chains streaking past, the night rolling across to engulf them, then only the
glint of moonlight reflected off clouds until daylight rolled in to dispel darkness. Now as they raced
across the surface of the planet, she could make out the patchwork of fields and relaxed into the familiar
feeling of approach on a medieval planet, forgetting for the moment the tension that would come on
their landing, of meeting people Magnus knew, but who might have grown and changed into strangers.

Night rolled across the screen again, but this time there were lights here and there from towns,
lights that disappeared as night deepened, and when daylight came back, she could make out roads
threading from one cluster of roofs to another. They drifted across the screen much more slowly as the
starship shed its speed, slowing till it might land without churning up a whole forest. When night came a
third time, she could see individual houses very clearly, barns, and even the dots that were cattle in the
fields. A dark blot on the screen became treetops silvered by moonlight that drifted so slowly they

file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...0-%20Warlock%2013%20-%20Warlock's%20Last%20Ride.txt (13 of 247)20-2-2006 23:44:27
 file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruiswijk/Mijn%20d...%20Stasheff%20-%20Warlock%2013%20-%20Warlock's%20Last%20Ride.txt

scarcely seemed to move, then suddenly swelled and went racing by, the speed seeming greater as the
ship swooped lower, and Alea's heart rose into her throat, as it always did, the primitive peasant within
her unable to believe that they would not fall out of the sky and slam into the earth, to be squashed like
flies. Her whole body tensed, pushing against the webbing as though she could slow the ship by her own
strength, even as she scolded herself for a foolish barbarian.

Then the racing treetops began to slow, ceasing to be a blur and becoming individual masses again,
a mass that opened into a huge ragged circle of a clearing with the silver trail of a river down one side, a
circle that seemed to float into sight, then to swell so much that the trees drifted out of view at the edges,
that the cluster of dots at the top of the screen grew into people who swam out off the bottom in their
own turn. Then there was a jolt, ever so slight, and the dark mass below resolved into individual grass
stems, unmoving, and Magnus was releasing his webbing, was rising to his full height, tense and braced,
saying, "We're home," and turning toward the airlock as though he were about to face an army.

Two

ALEA WAS OUT OF HER WEBBING IN AN INSTANT and by his side, matching him step for
step as he paced toward the airlock. As they stepped in, she snatched up the two staves that leaned
against the wall and pressed the longer into his hand.

Magnus stared down at it. "What would I want with this? I don't have to be ready to fight—I'm
home!"

She didn't believe the middle part, couldn't when his whole stance belied it, but couldn't say that
either.

"I'm not a cripple, you know," he told her. "I don't need something to lean on."

She didn't believe that either, but said only, "I do. You don't want to embarrass me, do you?"