[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

trembling. Gradually, it sub-sided, and the plain was flat again, with the exception of a six-foot long
mound.
"Swallowed up," Vala said. She seemed thrilled. Her eyes were wide open, her mouth parted, the lower
lip wet. Her tongue flicked out to trace with its tip the oval of both lips.
Wolff said, "Our father has indeed created a monster for us. Perhaps, this entire planet is covered with
the skin of ... of this Weltthier."
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
"What?" said Theotormon. His eyes were still glazed with terror. And though he had been shrinking
during the starvation on the last world, he now seemed to have dwindled off fifty pounds in the past two
minutes. His skin hung in loops.
"Weltthier. World-animal. From German, a Terrestrial language."
A planet covered with skin, he thought. Or maybe it was not so much a skin as a continent-sized
amoeba spread out over the globe. The idea made him boggle.
The skin existed; there was no denying that. But how did it keep from starving to death? The millions
and millions of tons of proto-plasm had to be fed. Certainly, although it ate animals, it could not get nearly
enough of these to maintain itself.
Wolff decided to investigate the subject, if he ever got the chance. He was as curious as a monkey or a
Siamese cat, always probing, pondering, speculating, and analyzing. He could not rest until he knew the
why and how.
He sat down to rest while he considered what to do. The others, Vala excepted, also sat or lay down.
She walked from the "safety zone," placing her feet carefully with each step. Watching her, he
un-derstood what she was doing. Why had he not thought of that? She was avoiding contact with the
plants (hairs?) that grew from the holes (pores?). After traveling on a circle with a radius of about
twenty-five yards, she returned to the gate area. Not once had the skin trembled or begun to form
threatening shapes.
Wolff stood up and said, "Very good, Vala. You beat me to it. The beast, or whatever it is, detects life
by touch through the feelers or hairs. If we navigate as cautiously as ships going through openings in reefs,
we can cross over this thing. Only trouble is, how do we get past those?"
He pointed outwards to the horny buttes, the excrescentoid hills. The hairs began to crowd together at
their bases, and beyond the buttes they carpeted the ground.
She shrugged and said, "I don't know."
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
"We'll worry about it when we get to it," he said. He began walk-ing, looking downwards to guide
himself among the feelers. The Lords followed him in Indian file, with Vala again being the only
ex-ception. She paralleled his course at a distance of five or six yards to his right.
"It's going to be very difficult to hunt animals for food under these conditions," he said. "We'll have to
keep one eye on the hairs and one on the animal. A terrible handicap."
"I wouldn't worry," she said. "There may be no animals."
"There is one I'm sure exists," Wolff said. He did not say anything more on the subject although it was
evident that Vala was wondering what he meant. He headed towards the "tree" in a branch of which he
saw the nest. A circular pile of sticks and leaves, it was lodged at the junction of the trunk and a branch
and was about three feet across. The sticks and leaves seemed to be held together with a gluey
substance.
He stepped between two feelers, propped his club against the tree, and shinnied up the trunk. Halfway
up, he saw the tops of two hex-agons on one of the buttes. When he got to the nest, he clung to the trunk
with his legs, one arm around the trunk, while with the other hand he poked through leaves on top of the
nest. He uncovered two eggs, speckled green and black and about twice the size of turkey eggs.
Removing them one by one, he dropped them to Vala.
Immediately thereafter, the mother returned. Larger than a bald eagle, she was white with bluish
chevrons, furry, monkey-faced, fal-con-beaked, saber-toothed, wolf-eared, bat-winged,
archeopteryx-tailed, and vulture-footed.
She shot down on him with wings folded until just before she struck. The wings opened with a whoosh
of air, and she screamed like iron being ripped apart. Perhaps the scream was intended to freeze the
prey. If so, it failed. Wolff just let loose of the trunk and dropped. Above him came a crash and another
scream, this time of frustration and panic, as the beast rammed partly into the nest and partly into the
trunk. Evidently, it had expected to have its momen-tum absorbed by Wolff's body. And it may have
underestimated its speed in its fury.
Wolff hit the ground and rolled, knowing that he was disturbing the feelers but unable to prevent it. He
came up on his feet, clumps of glued-together sticks and leaves raining around him from the shat-tered
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
nest. He got to one side just in time to escape being hit by the body of the half-stunned flier. However,
the blow would not have been a full one, since the creature had slowed its fall with an instinc-tive
outspreading of wings.
By then, the earth-skin was reacting to the messages transmitted by the feelers. Not only Wolff had
contacted them. The other Lords had scattered when Wolff fell, and they had brushed against hairs all
around the tree.
"Back to the tree," Wolff yelled at them. Vala had anticipated his advice; she was already halfway up the
trunk. He began shinnying after Vala, only to feel talons sharp and hot as glowing-white hooks fasten into [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

zanotowane.pl

doc.pisz.pl

pdf.pisz.pl

kajaszek.htw.pl