"David Drake - Men Like Us (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

being liquefied. "Yes, I burned it," the traveler said evenly, "getting too close to something the-something
the Blast was too close to. And it'll never heal, no. But it hasn't gotten worse, either, and that was years
ago. It's not the sort of world where I could complain to have lost so little, hey?"
"Put it down," the chief said abruptly. Then, to the guard who was searching the pack. "Weapons?"
"Only this," the guard said, holding up a sling and a dozen dense pebbles fitted to its leather pocket.
"There's a little folding knife in my pants pocket." Smith volunteered. "I use it to skin the rabbits I take."
"Then put your clothes on," the chief ordered, and the crowd's breath eased. "You can stay at the inn,
since you've truck enough to pay for it"-he nodded toward the careful pile the guard had made of Smith's
trading goods-"and perhaps you can find girls on Front Street to service you as well. There's none of that
east of the Assembly here, I warn you. Before you do anything else,
though, you talk to me and the boys in private at the station."
The traveler nodded and began dressing without embarrassment.
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The police and their guards escorted Smith silently, acting as if they were still uncertain of his status. Their
destination was a two-story building of native stone. It had probably been the town hall before the Blast.
It was now the chiefs residence as well as the government's headquarters. Despite that, the building was
far less comfortable than many of the newer structures that had been designed to be heated by the stoves
and lighted by lamps and windows. In an office whose plywood paneling had been carefully
preserved-despite its shoddy gloominess-the governing oligarchs of the town questioned Smith.
They were probing and businesslike. Smith answered honestly and as fully as he could. Weapons
caches? Looted by survivors or rotted in the intervening centuries. Food depots? A myth, seeded by
memories of supermarkets and brought to flower in the decades of famine and cold that slew ten times as
many folk as the Blast had slain directly. Scrap metal for the furnaces? By the millions of tons, but there
would be no way to transport it across the mountains. And, besides, metals were often hot even at this
remove from the Blast.
"All right," said the chief at last, shutting the handbook of waxed boards on which he had been making
notes. The room had become chilly about the time they had had to light the sooty naphtha lamp. "If we
think of more during the night, we can ask in the morning." His eyes narrowed. "How long are you
expecting to stay?"
Smith shrugged. "A few days. I just like to . . . wander. I really don't have any desire to do anything else."
He raised his pack by the straps and added, "Can one of you
direct me to your inn?"
Carter, the youngest of the six policemen, stood. He was a blocky man with black hair and a
pepper-and-salt beard. He had conducted much of the questioning himself. "I'll take him," he said. Unlike
his colleagues, he carried a heavy fighting knife in addition to his automatic rifle. He held the door open
for Smith.
The night sky was patchy. When the silver moon was clear, there was more light outside than the bud of
naphtha cast within. The pall of steam above the power plant bulged and waned like the mantle of an
octopus. Tiny azure sparks traced the power lines across the bridge and down into the smelter.
Smith thumbed at the plant. "They made light from electricity, you know? Before the Blast. You ever try
that?"
His guide looked at him sharply. "Not like they did. Things glow, but they burn up when we can't keep all
the air away from 'em. But you'd be smarter not to ask questions, boy. And maybe you'd be smarter to
leave here a little sooner than you planned. Not to be unfriendly, but if you talk to us, you'll talk to others.
And we don't much care for talk about Moseby. It has a way of spreading where it shouldn't."
The policeman turned through an open gate and up a graveled pathway. Rosy light leaked around the