"Gordon R. Dickson - The Outposter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

Mark continued to watch them come, now, for his own reasons. Whether by accident or design, most of
them had chosen to dress themselves in colours as sombre as their faces. Only far down the line
approaching the ship was there one flash of brilliant colourтАФ a big man dressed in a half-coat of scarlet
and gold, with calf-high boots of dark blue and a golden cap.

The argument at the foot of the passenger stairs, just in front of him, drew Mark's atten-tion once more
from the colonists.

"I don't see why!" The girl was angry now. "My gun is just as lethal at short range as that."

"But part of the point is in showing the weapon, miss," said the guard she was facing. "It'spart of the
necessary early conditioning for the garтАФthe colonists."

"The what?"The girl stared at him.

The guard's face reddened. The word had almost slipped out, and any explanation now would simply
make matters worse. Mark examined the guardWith new interest to see how he would handle the
situation.

"TheтАФcolonists, miss," he stammered. "You seeтАФ"

"But you started to call them 'garbage'!" ex-claimed the girl, staring at him. "That's a ter-rible thing to
say!"

"Well, it's not them, so muchтАФ" the guard was now sweating lightly. "WeтАФthey just call them that
because the Earth-City's got to get rid of... well, what it doesn't want..."

The other guard, Mark noted, was prudent-ly staying out of it. From social error his partner was now
sinking into neartreason, and this before someone who, by evidence of the unusual respect they had
shown her, might well be closely related to someone in the Earth-City government. Mark felt a twinge of
sympathy for the guard. Rescue should not be too difficult. What was needed was a diver-sion.

He glanced back at the approaching line of colonists. The big man in the scarlet and gold clothing was
now almost opposite them. It was obvious that his wearing apparel, when seen up close, was every bit as
expensive as that of the girl's, but wealth alone was not always enough to keep someone from being
lotteried for the colonies. The colonist's heavy-boned, good-looking face had a wild, pale look, and there
was the glint of sweat on his broad forehead. Mark guessed him to be suffering not only from being
where he was but also from a drug or alcohol hangover. Mark stared at the man hard, and after a
second, with the sensitivity of the watched, the big man looked around. Through the wire mesh of the
ten-foot-high fence their eyes met.

Mark smiled at him, deliberatelyтАФwith the mocking smile of someone on the right side of the barrier.

For a second Jarl Rakkal only stared back.Then his face spasmed into a white mask. And suddenly he
was running toward the fence.

Shouts from the other colonists interrupted the girl and the now-babbling guard. Both guards swung
about as the big man went up the far side of the fence like a cat, his hands clamping fiercely on the wire
ends at the top and coming away bloody as he flipped his body over and down on the passenger side.