qwurx [shmem] ~> time perl -lne 'BEGIN{$,=" "}print+(split)[9,7,5,3,1]' in.txt >/dev/null

real	0m1.589s
user	0m1.588s
sys	0m0.004s
qwurx [shmem] ~> time python list.py in.txt >/dev/null

real	0m2.204s
user	0m2.188s
sys	0m0.016s

##</code><code>##

qwurx [shmem] ~> python
Python 2.7.9 (default, Jun 29 2016, 13:08:31) 
[GCC 4.9.2] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> line = "1 2 3 4"
>>> line.split()[::-2]
['4', '2']
>>> line = "1 2 3 4 5"
>>> line.split()[::-2]
['5', '3', '1']
>>> ^D