"Gordon R. Dickson - Call him lord" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

"The aliens are all dead now, and the Emperor's got a
hundred other worlds! Why can't his son take his Grand Tour
on them? Why does he have to come here to Earthand
you?"
"There's only one Earth."
"And only one you, I suppose?"
He sighed internally and gave up. He had been raised by
his father and his uncle after his mother died, and in an
argument with Teena he always felt helpless. He got up from
the table and went to her, putting his hands on her and gently
trying to turn her about. But she resisted.
He sighed inside himself again and turned away to the
weapons cabinet. He took out a loaded slug pistol, fitted it into
the stubby holster it matched, and clipped the holster to his
belt at the left of the buckle, where the hang of his leather
jacket would hide it. Then he selected a dark-handled knife
with a six-inch blade and bent over to slip it into the sheath
inside his boot top. He dropped the cuff of his trouser leg
back over the boot top and stood up.
"He's got no right to be here," said Teena fiercely to the
breadboard. "Tourists are supposed to be kept to the museum
areas and the tourist lodges."
"He's not a tourist. You know that," answered Kyle,
patiently. "He's the Emperor's oldest son and his great-grand-
mother was from Earth. His wife will be, too. Every fourth
generation the Imperial line has to marry back into Earth
stock. That's the lawstill." He put 'on his leather jacket,
sealing it closed only at the bottom to hide the slug-gun
holster, half turned to the doorthen paused.
"Teena?" he asked.
She did not answer.
"Teena!" he repeated. He stepped to her, put his hands on
her shoulders and tried to turn her to face him. Again, she
resisted, but this time he was having none of it.
He was not a big man, being of middle height, round-faced,
with sloping and unremarkable-looking, if thick, shoulders.
But his strength was not ordinary. He could bring the white
stallion to its knees with one fist wound in its maneand no
other man had ever been able to do that. He turned her easily
to look at him.
"Now, listen to me" he began. But, before he could
finish, all the stiffness went out of her and she clung to him,
trembling.
"He'll get you into trouble1 know he will!" she choked,
muffledly into his chest. "Kyle, don't go! There's no law
making you go!"
He stroked the soft hair of her head, his throat stiff and
dry. There was nothing he could say to her. What she was
asking was impossible. Ever since the sun had first risen on
men and women together, wives had clung to their husbands