"Alan Dean Foster - Icerigger 1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

" No need, Evers. He's out cold."

There was silence for the first time in quite a while. It was broken by a single pair of hands,
clapping politely. The mate turned to the yachtsman's son, who was applauding them all ... whether
respectfully or sardonically, he couldn't tell.

"Bravo," trilled the playboy.



Not a creature was stirring, not even a mus musculus.

The sentiment was proper but the subject inappropriate, thought Ethan Frome Fortune as he moseyed
toward the rear of the passenger's blister. Mice and rats had not been able to handle the
exigencies of interstellar flight. Oh, they could get on board shuttles and from there to a ship,
and they'd been a problem at first.

Then someone got the bright idea of turning off the posi-grav field for half an hour in the
passenger sections. One man with a net swam around collecting the badly befuddled vermin and that
was sufficient for pest control til next port of call.

It was just as well, Ethan mused wryly. If said rodentia had been able to make the adaptation, the
company might have stuck him with mousetraps to peddle.

As a moderately successful luxury goods salesman for the House of Malaika, his stock ran more to
jeweled knick-knacks, perfumes, and intricately wrought, expensively priced mechanical gadgetry.
Jeweled mousetraps would not be a prime seller.

He passed a small observation port, paused to look at the planet piroueting heavily below. Such
ports were less frequent at this rearmost end of the passenger's compartment, but then, so were
passengers. He was tired of idiot small talk and there were no bulk sales to be made with this
bunch.

Most of Tran-ky-ky still swam in darkness. Probably coin-cidence that nightside happened to fall
on the ship as it orbited in sleep period. Ethan seemed to be the only non-crew mem-ber up and
about.

Tomorrow, slim as chances for business seemed from the tapes; he'd take the shuttle down. That
would mean enduring the usual gaggle of tourists. Oh well, shoving was all. a part of existence,
no matter which law you indexed it under.

Tran-ky-ky was a figurative whistle-stop on the Antares, run. The giant interstellar transport
would. remain a day or two in the planet's vicinity. Most of that time would be spent transferring
down cargo for the single humans outpost on the forbidding surface.



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