"L. Sprague De Camp - The Hostage of Zir" - читать интересную книгу автора (De Camp L Sprague)

"Where are you taking them tomorrow?"

"Through the Hamda'. They can unload some of their ill-gotten wealth on the
vendors of trinkets, all of whom are salivating in anticipation. Krishnans think
all Terrans as rich as Dezful the pirate king."

"They have to be pretty well fixed to make the trip," said Reith, yawning again.
"Boa noite."

Ivar Heggstad said: "So what if you are stiff? A little vork-out vill soon fix that.
Come on, now: deep knee bends. Down! Up! Down!тАж"

When Reith thought himself on the verge of collapse, Heggstad produced an
armful of fencing masks and padding. Put these on. Now take this."

He handed Reith a fencing saber with a blunt point and a big bowl-shaped guard.
Reith looked dubious, saying:

In the stories, the hero goes to work with a skinny little epee and skewers the
villains while they're waving big cutting swords around."

"Akk ja! Those little toothpicks are all right for a couple yentlemen in silk
breeches and powdered vigs, on level ground vit seconds to see everything is
done by the rules. Here, the Terran comes up against a Krishnan in armor, and
his blade bends double. Or the Krishnan hits his blade real hard and snaps it.
Then the gallant earthman is dead. So, for these conditions, nineteenth-century

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saber is the thing. En garde!

Reith ended the day with his right arm black and blue to the shoulder, where
Heggstad had whacked him. He joined his tourists on their return from the
Hamda'. This was a suburb of Novorecife outside the wall. The dwellers were a
raffish lot of deracinated Krishnans and broken-down Terran adventurers. There
one could buy native artifacts, gimcrack souvenirs, and real or fake antiquities.

Old Mrs. Scott had bought a pair of earrings allegedly worn by the pirate Dezful.
Turner came back festooned with a necklace said to have been worn by Dangi
when she was imprisoned in the haunted tower. Considine and Pride each got a
sword supposed to have belonged to the hero Qarar. When Reith spoke to Aime
Jussac, the portly jeweller smiled indulgently.

"They tried all sorts of junk on me," he said. "Me, I played dumb. The dumber I
played, the more fantastic the stories they told about their little pieces of jewelry.
Then Castanhoso let slip that I was the retired vice-president of Tiffany and
Company. Zut! You should have seen their faces. But then we settled down to a
plain business talk, with the little Hercules interpreting. I picked up a piece not