"Foster, Alan Dean - Star Wars - Splinter Of The Mind's Eye" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

"See these two escorted to the restraining area."
"Which cell, sir?"
"The maximum secure holding pen," Grammel replied, his face unreadable.
The sergeant hesitated. "But, sir, that cell's already occupied. Its occupants are dangerous... they've already put three men in the infirmary."
"No matter," Grammel insisted indifferently. "I'm sure these two can handle themselves. Besides, prisoners don't fight other prisoners. Not too often, anyway."
"What are you talking about?" the Princess demanded to know, climbing to her feet. "What are you caging us with?"
"You'll find out," Grammel assured her pleasantly. Several troops entered the room and boxed themselves around Luke and Leia. "Please try to keep yourselves alive until I can check on your story. I'd be distressed if it developed that you've been telling me the truth and couldn't survive the company of your cell companions long enough to be released."
"We've been honest with you!" Luke insisted, sounding desperate.
"Sergeant?"
The noncom led the two prisoners to the exit. Grammel ignored Luke's entreaties to know what they were being sent to.
When they were gone and the chamber was quiet again, the Captain-Supervisor spent several minutes gazing at the glowing fragment of crystal. Then he touched a switch behind his desk. Another door opened and a small cloaked figure entered the room for the second time.
"That's the thing you saw, Bot?" said Grammel, gesturing at the open box sitting on the desk. A nod from the hooded shape. "You know what it is?" A negative shake this time.
"Neither do I," Grammel confessed. "I think the youth underestimates its strangeness. I've never seen or heard of anything remotely like it. Have you?" Another sideways shake of the hooded skull.
Grammel glanced at the closed doorway where Luke and Leia had been taken out. "Those two could be what the boy said they were. I don't know. I have the feeling his story is a little too neat, too convenient. Almost as if he were gauging his responses to what I wanted to hear. I can't decide whether he's an inefficient crook or a supernally smooth liar.
"Something else. He sounded almost confident that he and the girl could make contact with Rebels on the Ten or Twelve. None of our agents have been able to do that."
A husk of a sentence from the figure and Grammel nodded.
"I know that the Rebels have ways of separating true traitors from our people, but the boy's confidence still troubles me. It seems misplaced in a petty criminal. And the girl had more spirit than her type normally displays. I'm puzzled, Bot. But I think... I think there might be something important in all this. I just don't have the facts available to glue it all together with... yet. It might mean much to us both." The figure nodded vigorously, pleased.
Grammel reached a decision. "I'm going to have to contact higher authority. I don't like the idea of sharing anything like this, but I don't see a way around it." He jerked his head contemptuously toward the door. "In any event, we'll cut the truth out of them before anyone of importance can get here."
Leaving the desk, he walked to the wall behind it and touched a small switch. A section of wall vanished, leaving revealed behind a blank screen of golden hue. Grammel adjusted another control. A panel awash with dials and studs slid out of the wall beneath the reflective screen. Further adjustment, and then he spoke into a protruding vo-pickup.
"I have a deep-space communication of the First Priority for Governor Bin Essada, on the territorial administrative world of Gyndine." He glanced back at the cloaked form for reassurance, was rewarded with a nod.
"Call is being processed," a computer voice declared flatly. Visual static appeared for a moment, then the screen cleared with gratifying speed. By Imperial distances Gyndine was not very far away.
The portrait that appeared on the screen was of an overweight, swarthy individual whose most outstanding feature was a series of chins falling in steps to the upper part of his shirt. Curly black hair, touched with white at the sides and dyed orange in a spiral pattern on top, crowned the face like seaweed on some water-worn boulder. Dark eyes squinted perpetually, their pink pupils ever sensitive to light. "I have work to do," Governor Essada grunted in a porcine contralto. "Who calls and what for?"
With that smug, powerful visage looming over him on the screen, much of Grammel's customary assurance melted away. His own words came out sounding shaky and subservient.
"It is only I, Governor, a humble servant of the Emperor, Captain-Supervisor Grammel."
"I don't know any Captain-Supervisor Grammel," the voice said.
"I am in charge of the secret mining colony on Cicarpous V, sir," explained Grammel hopefully.
Essada paused momentarily, looked up from the tape he was inspecting. "I am familiar with the Imperial operations in that system," he replied guardedly. "What business do you have that requires First Priority with me?" The huge bulk leaned forward. "It had better be important, Captain-Supervisor Grammel. I know you now."
"Yes, sir." Grammel bowed his head repeatedly to the screen. "It's a matter involving two strangers who somehow set down here secretly. Two strangers and a peculiar bit of crystal they had in their possession. The people aren't important, but as you, sir, are widely famed as an expert on unusual radiations, I thought perhaps-"
"Don't waste my time with flattery, Grammel," Essada warned. "Since the Emperor dissolved the Senate, we regional governors have been overwhelmed with work."
"I understand, sir," Grammel said hastily, rushing to gather up the tiny box containing the stone. He held it so that the vis-pickup in the room could see it. "Here it is."
Essada peered at it. "Strange... I've never seen anything like that, Grammel. The radiation is generated from within?"
"Yes, sir, I'm certain."
"I'm not," the Governor replied, "but I admit it looks to be so. Tell me more about the people who had it."
Grammel shrugged. "They're nothing, probably just a couple of petty thieves who stole it, sir."
"A couple of petty thieves penetrated and landed in secret on Circarpous V?" said the Governor disbelievingly.
"I think so, sir. A boy and a young woman..."
"Young woman," Essada repeated. "We've heard rumors from Circarpous IV, about an important meeting that the underground leaders there were preparing for... a young woman, you say? Would she be dark-haired, fiery-tempered, perhaps even a touch sarcastic?"
"The very person, sir," a startled Grammel stammered.
"You have identified them?"
"No, sir. We've only just imprisoned them. They've been jailed together with-"
"Chaos take your details, Grammel!" Essada shouted. "Give me visual representation of both of these people."
"That is easily done," a relieved Grammel replied. He took the plastic recorder rod from the desk, held it up uncertainly before the screen. "This has not yet been transferred, sir. Do you think you can make out the rod imagery?"
"I can make out many things, Grammel, down to the shallow depths of your own soul. Place it close to your vis-pickup."
The administrator adjusted the requisite switch and placed the long glassy tube close to the screen panel. He touched the retrieval stud and two-dimensional portraits appeared within the rod's substance. A pause, and then he shifted the rod to show full-length views of both subjects.
"It may be her, by the Force, it just may be," Governor Essada muttered, now excited. "The youth I don't know, but he may also be important. I am pleased."
"Important, sir? You know of them?"
"I hope to have part credit for their capture and eventual execution-hers, at least." Essada looked sharply at the bewildered officer. "They must not be harmed or injured until proper authority arrives for them, Grammel."
"It shall be as you say, sir," a bemused Captain-Supervisor conceded. "But I don't understand. Who are they, and how do they come to the notice of someone such as-"
"I require only service from you, Grammel. Not questions."
"Yes, sir," the administrator barked stiffly.