"Joe Haldeman - A Tangled Web" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

STARLODGE LIMITED
642 EASTRIVER
NEW YORK, NEW YORK 100992
ATTENTION: PATRICE DUVAL

YOU MAY HAVE SOME COMPETITION HERE. NOTHING OPEN YET BUT A
GUY WE CALL PETER RABBIT IS ON THE SCENE. CHECK INTERPRETERS
GUILD AND SEE WHO'S PAYING PETER LAFITTE. CHANGE TERMS OF
SALE? PLEASE REPLY NEXT SAMMLER RUNRICARDO NAVARRO/RM
2048/MOROCHO HILTON

I wasn't sure what good the information would do me, unless they also found out how
much he was offering and authorized me to outbid him. At any rate, I wouldn't hear for three
days, earliest. Sleep.

Morocho IIIтАФits real name is !ka'alтАФrides a slow sweeping orbit around Morocho A, the
brighter of the two suns that make up the Morocho system (Morocho A is a close double star
itself, but its white dwarf companion hugs so close that it's lost in the glare). At this time of
day, Morocho B was visible low in the sky, a hard blue diamond, too bright to stare at, and
A was right overhead, a bloated golden ball. On the sandy beach below us the flyer cast two
shadows, dark blue and faint yellow, which raced to come together as we landed.
Pa'an!al is a fishing village thousands of years old, on a natural harbor formed where a
broad jungle river flows into the sea. Here on the beach were only a few pole huts with
thatched roofs, where the fishers who worked the surf and shallow pools lived. Pa'an!al
proper was behind a high stone wall, which protected it on one side from the occasional
hurricane and on the other from the interesting fauna of the jungle.
I paid off my driver and told him to come back at second sundown. I took a deep breath
and mounted the steps. There was an open-cage Otis elevator beside the stairs, but people
didn't use it, only fish.
The !tang are compulsive about geometry. This wall was a precise 1:2 rectangle, and the
stairs mounted from one corner to the opposite in a satisfyingly Euclidian 30 degrees. A
guardrail would have spoiled the harmony. The stairs were just wide enough for two !tang to
pass, and the rise of each step was a good half meter. By the time I got to the top I was both
tired and slightly terrified.
A spacefaring man shouldn't be afraid of heights, and I'm not, so long as I'm in a vehicle.
But when I attained the top of the wall and looked down the equally long and perilous flight
of stairs to ground level, I almost swooned. Why couldn't they simply have left a door in the
wall?
I sat there for a minute and looked down at the small city. The geometric regularity was
pleasing. Each building was either a cube or a stack of cubes, and the rock from which the
city was built had been carefully sorted, so that each building was a uniform shade. They
went from white marble through sandy yellow and salmon to pearly gray and obsidian. The
streets were a regular matrix of red brick. I walked down, hugging the wall.
At the bottom of the steps a !tang sat on a low bench, watching the nonexistent traffic. тАФ
Greetings, I clicked and snorted at him. тАФIt certainly is a pleasant day.
тАФNot everywhere, he grunted and wheezed back. An unusually direct response.
тАФAre you waiting for me?
тАФWho can say? I am waiting. His trunk made a philosophical circle in the air. тАФIf you
had not come, who knows for what I would have been waiting?
тАФWell, that's true. He made a circle in the other direction, which I think meant What