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

shutters of a large building on the edge of the Assembly. Sound and warm air bloomed into the night
when he opened the door. In the mild weather the anteroom door was open within.
"Carter!" shouted a big man at the bar of the taproom. "Just in time to buy us a round!" Then he saw
Smith and blinked, and the dozen or so men of the company grew quieter than the hiss of the fire.
"Friends, I don't bite," said Smith with a smile, "but I do drink and I will sleep. If I can come to an
agreement with our host here, that is," he added, beaming toward the barman.
"Modell's the name," said the tall, knob-jointed local. Neither he nor the traveler offered to shake hands,
but he returned the other's smile with a briefer, professional one of his own. "Let's see what you have to
trade."
The men at the bar made room as Smith arranged his small stock on the mahogany. First the traveler set
out an LP record, still sealed in plastic. Modell's lips moved silently as his finger hovered a millimeter
above the title. "What's a 'Cher,'?' he finally asked.
"The lady's name," said Smith. "She pronounced it `share.' " Knowing grunts from the men around him
chorused the explanation. "You've electricity here, I see. Perhaps there's a phonograph?"
"Naw, and the power's not trained enough yet anyhow," Modell said regretfully. His eyes were full of the
jacket photograph. "It heats the smelters is all, and-"
"Modell, you're supposed to be trading, not running your mouth," the policeman interrupted. "Get on with
it."
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"Well, if not the record, then-" Smith said.
"I might make you an offer on the picture," one of the locals broke in.
"I won't separate them, I'm afraid," Smith rejoined, "and I won't have the record where it can't be used
properly. These may be more useful, though I can't guarantee them after the time they've been sitting . . .
." And he laid a red-and-green box of .30-30 cartridges on the wood.
"The chief keeps all the guns in Moseby besides these," said Carter, patting the plastic stock of his M16.
"It'll stay that way. And there's a righteous plenty of ammunition for them already."
"Fine, fine," said Smith, unperturbed, reaching again into his pack. He removed a plastic box that whirred
until a tiny green hand reached out of the mechanism to shut itself off. It frightened the onlookers as much
as Smith's own radiation scars had. The traveler thoughtfully hid the toy again in his pack before taking
out his final item, a GI compass.
"It always shows north, unless you're too close to iron," Smith said as he demonstrated. "You can turn
the base to any number of degrees and take a sighting through the slot there, but I'll want more than a
night's lodging for it."
"Our tokens are good up and down the river," one of the locals suggested, ringing a small brass disk on
the bar. It had been struck with a complex pattern of lightning bolts on one side and the number SO on
the other. "You can redeem 'em for iron ingots at dockside," he explained, thumbing toward the river.
"Course, they discount 'em the farther away you get."
"I don't follow rivers a great deal," the traveler lied with a smile. "Let's say that I get room and board-and
all I, care to drink-for a week . . . ."
The chaffering was good-natured and brief, concluding with three days' room and board, or-and- here
Smith nodded toward the stern-faced Carter-so much shorter a time as he actually stayed in the village.
In addition, Smith would have all the provisions he requested for his journey and a round for the house
now. When Modell took the traveler's hand, extended to seal the bargain, the whole room cheered. The
demands for mugs of the sharp, potent beer drew the innkeeper when he would far rather have pored
over his pre-Blast acquisition-marvelous, though of scant use to him.
The dealing over, Smith carried his mug to one of the stools before the fire. Sausages, dried vegetables,