"Gordon R. Dickson - The Right to Arm Bears" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

inside the door as John came through it; and their appearance assaulted his senses in all ways,
immediately, and without warning.
To begin with, they smelled. Not overpoweringly, not even unbearably, in fact rather like dogs
that have been out in the rain for the first time in several weeks during which they had not had a
bath. But, definitely, they smelled.
It did not help, either, for John to notice that the two were faintly wrinkling their large black
noses at him, in turn.
And on top of this odor, there was the fact of the bigness of the room; which, after ten seconds,
pulled a double switch on the senses; so that, instead of John feeling that he was the same size
he had always been and the room was unnaturally big, the first thing he knew he was feeling that
it was normal in dimensions and he had shrunk, all of a sudden, to the stature of a six-year old
boy.
But last and not least was the center of all this, the two adult male Dilbians themselves, looking
indeed like a pair of Kodiak bears who had stood up on their hind legs and gone on a diet. True,
their brows were higher and more intelligent than bears. Their noses were shorter, their lower
jaws more human-like than ursinoid. But their thick coats of brownish-black hair, their lumbering
stance, massive shoulders and forearms and the fact that they wore nothing to speak of beyond a
few leather straps and metal ornaments, shouted bear at you, any way you looked at it. If it was
up to me, thought John . . .
"Ah, there, Little Bite!" boomed the larger of the two furry monsters in native Dilbian, before he
could finish the thought. "This is the new one? Two Answers and I shook a leg right over here to
give him the eye. Kind of bright colored up top there, ain't he?"
"Hor, hor, hor!" bellowed the other, thunderously. "Belt me, if I'd want one like him around.
Liable to burn the house down! Hor, hor, hor!"
"Some of we humans have hair that color," replied Joshua. "Gentlemen, this is John Tardy. John,
this gentleman with the sense of humor is Two Answers. And his quiet friend is Shaking Knees."
"Quiet!" roared the other Dilbian, exploding into gargantuan laughter. "Me, quiet! That's good!"
He shook the heavy logs with his merriment.
John blinked. He glanced incredulously from the imperturbable Joshua to these oversize clowns in
fur. What kind of goof-up, he wondered, could have put Guy in an ambassadorial post like this. A
sharply tailored, fastidious little dandy of a manтАФand these lolling, shouting, belching, king-
sized, frontier-type aliens. It was past belief.
For the first time there crept into John's mind the awful suspicion that the whole thingтАФJoshua
Guy being ambassador in a post like this, the kidnapping of the female sociologist, and his being
drafted to do a job that he was in no way experienced or prepared forтАФall this just part of one
monstrous blunder that had its beginnings in the Alien Relations Office, back in Governmental
Headquarters on Earth. "Haven't laughed like that since old Souse Nose fell into the beer vat in
the Mud Hollow Inn!" Two Answers was snorting, as he got himself back under control. "All right,
Bright Top, what've you got to say for yourself? Think you can take the Streamside Terror with one
paw tied behind your back?"
"I beg your pardon?" said John. "I understood I was here to bring backтАФerтАФGreasy Face, butтАФ"
"Streamside won't just hand her over. Will he, Knees?" Two Answers jogged his companion with a
massive elbow.
"Not that boy!" Shaking Knees shook his head, slowly. "Little Bite, I ought never have let you
talk me out of a son-in-law like that. Tough. Rough. Tricky. My little girl'd do all right with a
buck like that."
"I merely," said Joshua, "suggested you make them wait a bit, if you remember. Boy Is She Built is
still rather young."
"And, boy is she built!" said her father, fondly. "Yep, I know it made sense the way you put it