"Anderson, Poul - Flandry 02 - Flandry Of Terra" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anderson Poul)

Since Flandry considered the description admirable (he assumed a quog was not a nice animal) he said hastily: "I must warn you against lese majeste. And now let's get to my task. It's not very pleasant for me either. Captain Umbolu, are you related to an Imperial marine named Thomas?"
"Aye. I've a younger brother who 'listed for a five-year hitch."
Flandry's tones gentled. "I'm sorry. It didn't strike me you might be so closely related, Thomas Umbolu was killed in action on Brae."
Derek closed his eyes. One great hand clamped on the hilt of his sheath knife till blood trickled from beneath the nails. He looked again at the world and said thickly: "You came here swifter than the official news, Captain."
"I saw him die," said Flandry. "He went like a brave man."
"You've nay crossed space just to tell a colonial that much."
"No," said Flandry. "I would like to speak alone with you sometime soon. And with his other kin."
The broad black chest pumped air, the hard fingers curved into claws. Derek Umbolu rasped forth: "You'll nay torment my father with your devilments, nor throw shame on us with your secrecy. Ask it out here, 'fore 'em al|."
Flandry's shoulder muscles tightened, as if expecting a bullet. He looked to the Commander. Inyanduma's starred face was like obsidian. Flandry said: "I have reason to believe Thomas Umbolu was implicated in a treasonable conspiracy. Of course, I could be wrong, in which case I'll apologize. But I must first put a great many questions. I am certainly not going to perform before an audience. I'll see you later."
"You'll leave my father be or I'll kill you!"
"Belay!" cried Inyanduma. "I said he was a guest." More softly: "Go, Derek, and tell Old John what you must."
The giant saluted, wheeled, and stalked from the room. Flandry saw tears glimmer in Tessa's eyes. The Commander bowed ponderously at him. "Crave your pardon, sir. He's a stout heart ... surely you'll find nay treason in his folk ... but the news you bore was harsh."
Flandry made some reply. The gathering became decorous, the Lightmasters and Coast-watchers offered him polite conversation. He felt reasonably sure that few of them knew about any plottings: revolutions didn't start that way.
Eventually he found himself in a small but tastefully furnished bedroom. One wall was a planetary map. He studied it, looking for a place called Uhunhu. He found it near the Sheikhdom of Rossala, which lay north of here; if he read the symbols aright, it was a permanently submerged area.
A memory snapped into his consciousness. He swore for two unrepeating minutes before starting a chain of cigarettes. If that was the answer-

V
The inner moon, though smaller, raised the largest tides, up to nine times a Terrestrial high; but it moved so fast, five orbits in two of Nyanza's 30-hour days, that the ebb was spectacularly rapid. Flandry heard a roar through his wall, switched on the transparency, and saw water tumbling white from dark rough rock. It was close to sunset, he had sat in his thoughts for hours. A glance at the electric ephemeris over his bunk told him that Loa, the outer satellite, would not dunk the hall till midnight. And that was a much weaker flow, without the whirlpool effects which were dangerous for a lower-case lubber like himself.
He stubbed out his cigarette and sighed. Might as well get the nasty part over with. Rising, he shucked all clothes but a pair of trunks and a 'lung; he put on the swimshoes given him and buckled his guns-they were safely waterproof-into their holsters. A directory-map of the immediate region showed him where Captain John Umbolu lived. He recorded a message that business called him out and his host should not wait dinner: he felt sure Inyanduma would be more relieved, than offended. Then he stepped through the airlock. It closed automatically after him.
Sunset blazed across violet waters. The white spume of the breakers was turned an incredible gold; tide pools on the naked black skerry were like molten copper. The sky was deep blue in the east, still pale overhead, shading to a clear cloudless green where the sun drowned. Through the surfs huge hollow crashing and grinding, Flandry heard bells from one of the many rose-red spires ... or did a ship's bell ring among raking spars, or was it something he had heard in a dream once? Beneath all the noise, it was unutterably peaceful.
No one bothered with boats for such short distances. Flandry entered the water at a sheltered spot, unfolded the web feet in his shoes, and struck out between the scattered dome-and-towered reefs. Other heads bobbed in the little warm waves, but none paid him attention. He was glad of that. Steering a course by marked buoys, he found old Umbolu's house after a few energetic minutes.
It was on a long thin rock, surrounded by lesser stones on which a murderous fury exploded. The Terran paddled carefully around, in search of a safe approach. He found it, two natural breakwaters formed by gaunt rusty coraloid pinnacles, with a path that led upward through gardens now sodden heaps until it struck the little hemisphere. Twilight was closing in, slow and deeply blue; an evening planet came to white life in the west.
Flandry stepped onto the beach under the crags. It was dark there. He did not know what reflex of deadly years saved him. A man glided from behind one of the high spires and fired a harpoon. Flandry dropped on his stomach before he had seen more than a metallic glitter. The killing missile hissed where he had been.
"If you please!" He rolled over, yanking for his sleepy-needle gun. A night-black panther shape sprang toward him. His pistol was only half unlimbered when the hard body fell upon his. One chopping, wrist-numbing karate blow sent the weapon a-clatter from his grasp. He saw a bearded, hating face behind a knife.
Flandry blocked the stab with his left arm. The assassin pulled his blade back. Before it could return, Flandry's thumb went after the nearest eye. His opponent should have ignored that distraction for the few necessary moments of slicing time-but, instead, grabbed the Terran's wrist with his own free hand. Flandry's right hand was still weak, but he delivered a rabbit punch of sorts with it and took his left out of hock by jerking past his enemy's thumb. Laying both hands and a knee against the man's knife arm, he set about breaking same.
The fellow screeched, writhed, and wriggled free somehow. Both bounced to their feet. The dagger lay between them. The Nyanzan dove after it. Flandry put his foot on the blade. "Finders keepers," he said. He kicked the scrabbling man behind the ear and drew his blaster.
The Nyanzan did not stay kicked. Huddled at Flandry's knees, he threw a sudden shoulder block. The Terran went over on his backside. He glimpsed the lean form as it rose and leaped; it was in the water before he had fired.
After the thunder-crash had echoed to naught and no body had emerged, Flandry retrieved his needler. Slowly, his breathing and pulse eased. "That," he confessed aloud, "was as ludicrous a case of mutual ineptitude as the gods of slapstick ever engineered. We both deserve to be tickled to death by small green centipedes. Well ... if you keep quiet about it, I will."
He squinted through the dusk at the assassin's knife. It was an ordinary rustproof blade, but the bone hilt carried an unfamiliar inlaid design. And had he ever before seen a Nyanzan with a respectable growth of beard?
He went on up the path and pressed the house bell. The airlock opened for him and he entered.
The place had a ship's neatness, and it was full of models, scrimshaw, stuffed fish, all the sailor souvenirs. But emptiness housed in it. One old man sat alone with his dead; there was no one else.
John Umbolu looked up through dim eyes and nodded. "Aye," he said, "I 'waited you, Captain. Be welcome and be seated."
Flandry lowered himself to a couch covered with the softscaled hide of some giant swimming thing John Umbolu had once hunted down. The leather was worn shabby. The old man limped to him with a decanter of imported rum. When they had both been helped, he sat himself in a massive armchair and their goblets clinked together. "Your honor and good health, sir," said John Umbolu.
Flandry looked into the wrinkled face and said quietly: "Your son Derek must have told you my news."
"I've had the tidings," nodded Umbolu. He took a pipe from its rack and began to fill it with slow careful motions. "You saw him die, sir?"
"He held my hand. His squad was ambushed on a combat mission on Brae. He ... it was soon over."
"Drowning is the single decent death," whispered the Nyanzan. "My other children, all but Derek, had that much luck." He lit his pipe and blew smoke for a while. "I'm sorry Tom had to go yon way. But it is kind of you to come tell me of it."
"He'll be buried with full military honors," said Flandry awkwardly. If they don't have so many corpses they just bulldoze them under. "Or if you wish, instead of the battle-casualty bonus you can have his ashes returned here."
"Nay," said Umbolu. His white head wove back and forth. "What use is that? Let me have the money, to build a reef beacon in his name." He thought for a while longer, then said timidly: "Perchance I could call further on your kindness. Would you know if ... you're'ware, sir, soldiers on leave and the girls they meet ... it's possible Tom left a child somewhere ... "
"I'm sorry, I wouldn't know how to find out about that."
"Well, well, I expected nay more. Derek must be wed soon then, if the name's to live."
Flandry drew hard on a cigarette, taken from a waterproof case. He got out: "I have to tell you what your son said as he lay dying."
"Aye. Say forth, and fear me nay. Shall the fish blame the hook if it hurts him a little?"
Flandry related it. At the end, the old man's eyes closed, just as Derek's had done, and he let the empty glass slip from his fingers.
Finally: "I know naught of this. Will you believe that, Captain?"
"Yes, sir," Flandry answered.
"You fear Derek may be caught in the same net?"
"I hope not."
"I too. I'd nay have any son of mine in a scheme that works by midnight murder-whatever they may think of your Empire. Tom ... Tom was young and didn't understand what was involved. Will you believe that too?" asked John Umbolu anxiously. Flandry nodded. The Nyanzan dropped his head and cupped his hands about the pipe bowl, as if for warmth. "But Derek ... why, Derek's in the Council. Derek would have open eyes-Let it nay be so!"
Flandry left him with himself for a time, then: "Where might any young man .. , first have encountered the agents of such a conspiracy?"