"Foster, Alan Dean - Flinx - Bloodhype" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

The man was gasping painfully. Mal let the arm drop and the thief
immediately clutched it protectively.

"There was something about a mixup in ship transfer. That's all I know,
God's truth!"

"Your piety rings as truthful as your kind intentions. This supposedly
misshipped shipment originated on Largess?"

"Yes. No. Maybe, I don't know. Believe me, I don't!"

"Stop whining. I'm not going to hit you. Yes. No. Maybe. I believe you. You
don't strike me as a policy maker."

"Let me go," the man begged. "Resell have me killed if I'm caught in the
capitol."

"Patience. I'm here and he's not. And if you don't stop stalling and tell
me what you were sent for, I will kill you!"

"We were supposed to find a small blue container, uncrested and umarked.
That's all the information I was given, I swear!"

Mal got off the thief's back. He moved back slowly, keeping the gun traaned
on the back of the man's neck.

"Okay, you've got thirty minutes to get wherever it is you'd best like to
get to. After that I give your description and my charges to Port
Authority. I'm finished with you. You'd better start thinking about Rose
and his delightful associates. But Repler's a pretty empty planet. With
luck you might..."

But the man was already running full speed for the main entrance,
apparently uncaring of being seen by Port guards. His right arm swayed
limply at his side. Damn, Hammurabi, when will you learn to watch yourself!
If you'd broken the arm any worse the man might have fainted on you. Then
you'd be stuck trying to revive him before a patrol arrived.

He turned back to the vandalized crate. Except for the unpleasant problem
of disposing of the remaining body, things had been pretty much cleared up.
He was curious to know what a slimeworm like Rose might have transshipped
from a place as dull and straitlaced as Largess. Dull enough, obviously, to
cause him to send two mm to break into a government?owned warehouse and
crack a private shipment to find.

He had an uncomfortable moment as he bent to look into the opened casing.
Suppose the small puttered had pulled one on him and the crate was full of
nothing but small blue boxes? He could have saved the worry. There was only
one blue container in sight. As the man had described, it was unmarked and