[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Mabry said defensively. "Doubt if I could've hit him anyway, fast as they move
. . . look at him out there! Acting awful damn proud of hisself! Maybe I can
get him yet!"
"Careful," Cosman warned as the gun turret swung about. He too had caught a
glimpse of the dog that had taken Haddon frisking about, but an older looking
dog had growled at it, and it had moved out of sight among the people. Mabry
cursed, and his gun remained silent.
"Okay, folks, don't be alarmed," Cosman said into the mike, "and start coming
aboard."
The people outside began moving warily toward the bus, and when the dogs made
no objection, they moved faster. But nobody was trampled, although there was
some pushing and shoving at the door before all were inside. Haddon was not
among them.
And the dogs had melted away into the smog. By the time the people were safe
inside, no targets were left for Mabry.
"Hell!" he grunted. "Let's go home."
Cosman started the bus moving. It was full day now, but the headlights helped
visibility enough to be left on. He checked his map for an underpass to the
eastbound side of the expressway.
"I wish I hadn't picked on the kid," Mabry muttered.
Cosman said nothing.
"We're all such damn fools," Mabry went on angrily. "Always lousing ourselves
up! This whole mess we're in . . . the world didn't get like it is by itself.
We brought it all on ourselves, by our damn stupid mistakes! You know that,
Joe?"
Cosman shrugged, and wished Mabry would shut up.
"We made our mess and now we got to live with it. Ain't you ever thought about
it, Joe? How different things might be if we'd used some sense, or if our
granddaddies had, I mean? It was way back then, when they put domes over the
towns and everybody moved inside to get out of the smog.
"Have you ever thought, Joe, what damn fools they were? All they had to do was
take all the dogs inside with 'em, or make sure they killed every damn mutt in
the country. But they didn't! That was the damn
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Myers,%20H.L.%20-%20The%20creatures%20of%20man/07434
36075__21.htm (9 of 10)18-1-2007 13:16:02
- Chapter 21
foolishest mistake anybody ever made!"
Cosman nodded slowly. Old Mabry talked a lot of nonsense, but sometimes he hit
the nail squarely on the head.
"I guess that's right, Mike," he said. "I can't imagine anything stupider than
that."
Back Next
|
Contents
Framed
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Myers,%20H.L.%20-%20The%20creatures%20of%20man/07434
36075__21.htm (10 of 10)18-1-2007 13:16:02
- Chapter 22
Back Next
|
Contents
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Myers,%20H.L.%20-%20The%20creatures%20of%20man/07434
Page 138
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
36075__22.htm (1 of 10)18-1-2007 13:16:03
- Chapter 22
Psychivore
1
Cargy was a hard boy to take by surprise.
Although he was just ten years old (or twelve and a fraction, Earth reckoning)
he had knocked about his world enough to know it pretty well. His world was
Merga, where surprises were commonplace.
And if his world was strange, so was his time. Humanity had arrived on Merga
only ninety Earth years earlier, and had barely had time to settle down, get
in an argument among themselves, and resolve the dispute with a war.
Cargy was orphaned by the war at the age of five, on his own as a runaway at
six, an independent tradesman at eight. He knew his world well enough to find
a unique niche for himself in the Mergan-
human ecology. He considered himself a success, and viewed his world with eyes
more calculating than startled.
In fact, when he saw the crossed-eyed man, it had been so long since anything
had struck him as strange that he stopped in his tracks and stared.
Maybe the man was staring back. Anyway, his face turned toward Cargy and he
propped up on an elbow as if to get a better look at the boy and the wagon he
was tugging. The man's eyes were hidden behind goggles of opaque black plastic
into which crossed slits had been cut for him to see through.
Cargy couldn't guess the purpose of such goggles, and in general he didn't
like the looks of the man sprawled in a patch of padgrass beside the trail. He
had a beggarly look, and Cargy knew how vicious beggars could be. This fellow
seemed very old, and scrawny, and maybe sick, but he'd had the strength to
walk to this spot in the foothills, a good twenty miles from anywhere. Cargy
didn't like getting too close to old Crossed-Eyes.
But he couldn't go around him. The hillside on both flanks of the trail was a
tangle of sackle trees and bladebriar. If Cargy were to get on into town and
about his business, he had to pull his wagon down the trail and past the man.
He scowled, shifted his grip on the wagon handle to his left hand, and moved
forward. He had learned early that timidity didn't pay.
Crossed-Eyes was smiling at him as he got close.
"Headed for Port City, son?"
The voice was whispery and cracked with age, but it didn't have the sly whine
Cargy had expected. And now he saw the man's clothes were too good for a
beggar. Also, a backpack lay on the grass at the man's side. Like he was a
hunter, or one of those off-planet sport-guys who liked to hike over a few
foothills so they could brag about "exploring" the wilds of Merga. But Cargy
could see that Crossed-Eyes was too old to be anything like that.
"Yes, sir," he replied to the man's question.
"What's in your wagon?"
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Myers,%20H.L.%20-%20The%20creatures%20of%20man/07434
36075__22.htm (2 of 10)18-1-2007 13:16:03
- Chapter 22
"Wildfruit."
"What kind?"
"All kinds. Shavolits, blues, jokones, swerlemins, muskers, hawbuttons,
greenlins . . .
"I haven't eaten a hawbutton in years," said the man. "Too dangerous for me to
climb for them. Are you selling them?"
"Yes, sir."
"I'll take half a dozen."
Cargy went to the back of his wagon and tugged out a corner of the spacesheet
Page 139
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
that covered his load. He picked out six of the dark brown, fully ripened
fruits and handed them to the man.
"They're three minals each," he said.
Painfully, Crossed-Eyes dug into a trouser pocket and brought out a hakon.
"Keep the change, son," he said.
"Thank you, sir," said Cargy, quickly pocketing the coin. The man had overpaid
like an off-worlder, even with nobody around to impress. Cargy was more
puzzled than ever. Instead of pulling his wagon on down the trail, he squatted
on his heels and watched the man eat.
The slitted goggles were the big mystery, but what bothered Cargy more than
that was the realization that the old guy looked awfully sick and might be
fixing to die. He didn't do too well with the hawbuttons, either. He gobbled
one, worried down a second, and just messed with a third.
"I overestimated my appetite, son. You can have these three back. What's your
name?"
"Cargy Darrow, sir."
"Glad to know you, Cargy. I'm Thomis Mead."
The name sounded vaguely familiar. "Glad to know you, Mr. Mead." They sat in
silence for a while, then Cargy asked, "Are you sick, mister?"
"Yes, but it won't last much longer," the man nodded, and Cargy knew he didn't
mean he'd soon get better. He meant it the other way.
"Was you trying to walk to town?" the boy asked.
"Yes, and I might have made it but . . ." Mead pulled up a trouser leg to
reveal a swollen ankle. "A bad sprain. I can't walk on it."
"Oh." Cargy looked at the ankle, then at the pallor of the man's face, and
felt annoyed.
The problem was that he couldn't hurry on alone into town to get help for this
old man Mead. Sackle trees were far less active and dangerous than many other
Mergan plant species, but they could be deadly to an old man who couldn't stay
alert and who might pass out any moment. And the hillside was thick with
sackle trees.
The only thing Cargy could do would require a considerable business sacrifice.
Grumpily he said, "I
guess I can pull you to town in my wagon."
"Thank you, Cargy. I'll pay you well for your trouble."
Cargy began unloading. The wagon was big enough for Mead to ride in, if he sat
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
