"Gardner F. Fox - The Arsenal of Miracles" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fox Gardner F)

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Proofed by an unsung hero.




The Arsenal of
Miracles
by Gardner F. Fox



ONE


It was Bran the Wanderer who found death.

Literally, death: the reason why men must die.

He did not understand what it was he found, at first. Few men would,
for it way only a metallic machine set in a city so old its stones turned
powdery to the rub of his big hand over them. The machine hummed a
little, very faintly, and it was warm to the touch. It appeared to do nothing
else.

Bran marvelled and walked on.

He had been walking on for several years, ever since he had found the
tele-doors, travelling across the wastelands of the star worlds, appearing
from out of nowhere on Costair or Uristhinn or Moorn, planets which
dotted the crown of Empire which was flung across deep space. He never
stayed long in any place. His feet itched for distant sands, for the waters of
unseen planets and their high places that only Bran seemed able to find.

After a while he became something of a legend.

And then he went to MakkadorтАж




He came walking into Makkamar City off its desert sands toward sunset
of a day when shadows were at their longest and their blackest and his
own shadow, moving in rhythmic stride before him, showed a big man
with deep chest and wide shoulders. There was a lean, hard look about
him, all over. The dust of the Akkan planets lay on his leotan furs and
yellow hair, on the black leather holster of his a-gun. Streaks of dried salt
on his boots showed where he had splashed through the waters of half a
dozen shallow streams. A moment he stood on the rim of the gray sands