"Charles L. Harness-Stalemate in Space" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harness Charles L)

"So you're a Terran? Then why did you kill the Terran officer on the balcony?"
She was so relieved that she sank limply to the floor beside him.
"Why should I tell you? You wouldn't believe anything I told you now, or that you found in my mind."
She smiled up at him.
"True, true. quite a dilemma. Should I shoot you now and possibly bring the rage of a noble Scythian
house down about my ears, or should I submit you to mechanical telepathic analysis?"
"I am yours, Viscount," she laughed. "Shoot me. Analyze me. Whatever you wish."
She knew her gaiety was forced, and that it had struck a false note. The iron gate of doubt had
clanged shut between them. From now on he would contain her mind in the mental prison of his own. The
dispatch beside Gorph's desk could have no further aid from her. Anyway, the cat had undoubtedly
carried off the doll.
"What a strange woman you are," he murmured. A brief shadow crossed his face. "With you, for a
little while, I have been happy. But in a few metrons, of course, you will depart under close arrest for the
psych center, and I'll be on my way back to the Tharn suns."
Within half a metron the office force would begin straggling into the Administration offices and her
letter would be found and given to a puzzled Gorph, who would then query Perat as to whether it should
not be in the incoming box for urgent matters. But what would Gorph do if his superior refused to
communicate with him or anyone else for a full metron? The first messenger jet left very soon, and there
was no other for four metrons. Would Gorph send it on the first jet, or would he wait? It was a chance
she'd have to take.
She got up from the floor and sat down on the couch beside the Viscount of Tharn. "Perat," she began
hesitantly, "I know you must send me away. I'm sorry, because I don't want to leave you so soon, and
you do not want me to leave you until the last moment, either. Anything else that I would tell you, you
might doubt, so I say nothing more. I would like to dance for you. When I dance, I tell the truth."
"Yes, dance, but take care of your rib," assented the man moodily.
She filled his glass again with a sure hand and replaced it on the table. Then she unloosed the combs in
her hair and let it fall in a profusion of curls about her shoulders, where it scintillated in a myriad sparkling
semicircles in the soft light of the table luminar.
She shook her shoulders to scatter her hair, and unhurriedly released the clasp of her outer lounging
gown. The heavy robe fell about her feet, leaving her clad only in a thin, flowing undergarment, which she
smoothed languidly while she kicked off her slippers. Her mouth was now half-parted, her eyes drooping
and slumberous. Perat was still staring at the ceiling, but she knew his mind was flowing unceasingly over
her body.
"I must have music," she whispered. The man made no protest when she pressed the controls on his
communications box to receive the slow and haunting dance music from the officers' club in the next
zone.
The main avenue of access to Perat was now cut. And Gorph was a bolder man than she thought if he
dared knock on the door of his chief while she was inside.
She began to sway and to chant. "The Song of Karos, the Great God of Scythe, Father of Tharn
folk, Dweller in Darkness..."
Perat's glass halted, then proceeded slowly to his lips. Of course, no educated nobleman admitted a
belief in the ancient religion of the Scythes, but how good it was to hear it sung and danced again! Not
since his boyhood, when his mother had dragged him to the temple by main force... He placed one palm
behind his head and continued to sip and to think, as this strange, lovely woman unraveled with undulant
body and husky voice the long, satisfying story of his god.
As she postured sinuously, Evelyn breathed a silent prayer of thanks to the dead mentors who had
crammed her to bursting with Scythe folklore.
The luminous metron dial revolved with infinite slowness.
***