"Philip Jose Farmer - The Green Odyssey" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

picked up by some peasants. They had turned him in to the soldiers of a nearby garrison, thinking he must be
a runaway slave on whom they'd collect a reward. Taken to the capital city of Quotz, Green had almost been
freed because there was no record of his being anybody's property. But his tallness, blondness and inability to
speak the local language had convinced his captors that he must have wandered down from some far northern
country. Therefore if he wasn't a slave he should be.

Presto, changeo! He was. And he'd put in six months in a quarry and a year as a dock worker. Then the
Duchess had chanced to see him on the streets as she rode by, and he'd been transferred to the castle.

The streets were alive with the short, dark, stocky natives and the taller, lighterтИТcomplexioned slaves. The
former wore their turbans of various colors, indicating their status and trade. The latter wore their
threeтИТcornered hats. Occasionally a priest in his high conical hat, hexagonal spectacles and goatee rode by.
Wagons and rickshaws drawn by men or by big, powerful dogs went by. Merchants stood at the fronts of
their shops and hawked their wares in loud voices. They sold cloth, grixtr nut, parchment, knives, swords,
helmets, drugs, booksтИТтИТ on magic, on religion, on travelтИТтИТ spices, perfumes, ink, rugs, highly sugared
drinks, wine, beer, tonic, paintings, everything that went to make up their civilization. Butchers stood before
open shops where dressed fowl, deer and dogs hung. Dealers in birds pointed out the virtues of their

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manyтИТcolored and multiтИТsonged pets.

For the thousandth time Green wondered at this strange planet where the only large animals were men, dogs,
grass cats, a small deer and a very small equine. In fact, there was a paucity of any variety of animal life,
except for the surprisingly large number of birds. It was this scarcity of horses and oxen, he supposed, that
helped perpetuate slavery. Man and dog had to provide most of the labor.

No doubt there was an explanation for all this, but it must be buried so deep in this people's forgotten history
that one would never know. Green, always curious, wished that he had time and means to explore. But he
didn't. He might as well resign himself to keeping a whole skin and to getting out of this mess as fast as he
could.

There was enough to do merely to make his way through the narrow and crowded streets. He had to display
his baton often to clear a path, though when he approached the harbor area he had less trouble because the
streets were much wider.

Here great wagons drawn by gangs of slaves carried huge loads to or from the ships. The thoroughfares had
to be broad, else the people would have been crushed between wagon and house. Here also were the
soтИТcalled Pens, where the dockтИТslaves lived. Once the area had actually been an enclosure where men and
women were locked up for the night, But the walls had been torn down and new houses built in the old
Duke's time. The closest Earthly parallel Green could think of for these edifices was a housing project. Small
cottages, all exactly alike, set in military columns.

For a moment he considered stopping off to see Amra, then decided against it. She'd get him tied up in an
argument or something, and he'd spend too much time trying to soothe her, time that should be spent at the
marketplace. He hated scenes, whereas Amra was a born selfтИТdramatist who reveled in them, almost
wallowed, one might say.