"Brian Daley - Requiem For a Ruler of Worlds" - читать интересную книгу автора (Daley Brian)

for death. This was one such.
He said wearily, "Please go. I want to beтАФ"
"You've altered your last will and testament. Why?"
Although no more than the residual image of his onetime self, muddled with age and pain, Weir was
instantly cautious. "It doesn't concern you. No one's business but my own."
The interloper's tone put danger in the air, like the lightning's ozone. "It might be everyone's business,
Caspahr. An Earthman. A Terran! What have you bequeathed him? Why are you bringing him here?"
Weir looked up craftily. "You mean 'her,' don't you?"
The figure moved closer. The wind was cold now, the lightning flashes more frequent, the thunder
louder. "The cunning hasn't left you, Caspahr." A right hand came up; a glittering pinbeam pistol was
pointed at the old man. A left hand exhibited a medical styrette.
Weir almost laughed at those, but hid it; a near-century of experience had made it a reflex to keep his
options and advantages hidden as long as possible. He'd been victorious so many times, and on such a
scale, that people tended to forget his defeats. Weir never did.
"No," the intruder went on, " 'he' is the correct pronoun. That much I know. What have you given
him?"
The pain was growing in Weir again, and he felt a little dizzy. He grunted, shifting in his chair, then
gasped with the passing torment of even so minor an effort. He'd been lucky to make it from his bed to
the chair.
"You'll be there for the Willreading. You'll find out then," he wheezed.
With a rasp of exasperation, the other stepped closer, the styrette before him. "You'll tell me in any
case."
"A memory release?" Weir allowed himself a hacking laugh, forcing it a bit. It devolved into a gargling
cough, and the old man tasted blood. It wouldn't be long now.
"Ahh, I see," the dark figure breathed. An injection would be futile, producing only coma or death.
The styrette disappeared, leaving the pinbeam. "But why Earth? Why?"
Weir shook his head, almost drunkenly. "Poor Old Terra. Why not!" He knew it was a feeble
deception. Still wed to his machines, he'd have managed something better, but the music and the
approaching thunder were too loud. He was nearly chattering with the cold, and racked with pain. It was
growing difficult even to assemble a coherent thought.
I'm only an old man who wants to be left alone! he thought. But few things in his life had come
easily, and he saw now that his death would not.
"I am engaged in locating his name now; I shall have it soon," his unwelcome visitor said. "What I
don't understand is your purpose. You've always claimed to despise Earth."
 "I hate the Earthservice. I've nothing but pity for Terra itself." He gathered the warm, salty blood in his
mouth and spat; in the dark, his enemy didn't see the crimson. Merciful Fates preserve you,
Functionary Third Class Hobart Floyt! Weir thought. "I wish Terra well."
But it might not come out well for Floyt, particularly if he were unaware that he had a dangerous
enemy moving against him. Weir now regretted the lack of instrumentation in his old chair; no built-in
alarms or commo, and the old man had purposely left his own comband behind. He began fumbling with
the buttons of the player, shutting off the music, hoping to surreptitiously record something the other said.
But the intruder impatiently took the instrument out of his hands, put it aside, and began adjusting the
pistol. The storm was nearly upon them.
Of course. Weir couldn't simply be left; there was the off chance he would live long enough to tell
someone that there was an assassin in Frostpile. But the pistol, adjusted to very low power, maximum
dispersal, and held close to Weir's failing heart, would fool any but the most exacting coroner, even if
there were an autopsy.
Fighting from a corner, as he had so many times before, Weir coldly dismissed any chance of his own
survival. Instead he concentrated on the need to leave evidence, somehow, that he hadn't met a natural
end. His hand fell on the chair's lift control. The intruder yelled a curse, raised the gun.