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

"Have you ever met my father, Phaen, the old Count of Tharn?"
"No."
 "Do you have a son?"
"No."
His mind was out of hers again, and he had turned moodily back, surveying the courtyard and the
dead. "Gorph will be wondering what happened to you. Come to my quarters at the eighth metron
tonight."
Apparently he had suspected nothing.
Father. Father. I had to do it. But we'll all join you, soon. Soon.
***


Three

* * *


Perat lay on his couch, sipping cold purple terif and following the thinly-clad dancer with narrowed
eyes. Music, soft and subtle, floated from his communications box, illegally tuned to an officers' club
somewhere. Evelyn made the rhythm part of her as she swayed slowly on tiptoe.
For the last thirty "nights"-- the hours allotted to rest and sleep-- it had been thus. By "day" she probed
furtively into the minds of the office staff, memorizing area designations, channels for official messages,
and the names and authorizations of occupational field crews. By night she danced for Perat, who never
took his eyes from her, nor his probe from her mind. While she danced it was not too difficult to elude
the probe. There was an odd autohypnosis in dancing that blotted out memory and knowledge.
"Enough for now," he ordered. "Careful of your rib."
When he had first seen the bandages on her bare chest, that first night, she had been ready with a
memory of dancing on a freshly waxed floor, and of falling.
Perat seemed to be debating with himself as she sat down on her own couch to rest. He got up,
unlocked his desk, and drew out a tiny reel of metal wire, which Evelyn recognized as being feed for an
amateur stereop projector. He placed the reel in a projector that had been installed in the wall, flicked off
the table luminar, and both of them waited in the dark, breathing rather loudly.
Suddenly the center of the room was bright with a ball of light some two feet in diameter, and inside
the luminous sphere were an old man, a woman, and a little boy of about four years. They were walking
through a luxurious garden, and then they stopped, looked up, and waved gaily.
Evelyn studied the trio with growing wonder. The old man and the boy were complete strangers. But
the woman-- !
"That is Phaen, my father," said Perat quietly. "He stayed at home because he hated war. And that is a
path in our country estate on Tharn-R-VII. The little boy I fail to recognize, beyond a general
resemblance to the Tharn line."
"But-- can you deny that you are the woman?"
The stereop snapped off, and she sat wordless in the dark.
"There seemed to be some similarity-- " she admitted. her throat was suddenly dry. Yet, why should
she be alarmed? She really didn't know the woman.
The table luminar was on now, and Perat was prowling hungrily about the room, his scar twisting his
otherwise handsome face into a snarling scowl.
"Similarity! Bah! That loop of hair over her right forehead hid a scar identical to yours. I have had the
individual frames analyzed!"
Evelyn's hands knotted unconsciously. She forced her body to relax, but her mind was racing. This
introduced another variable to be controlled in her plan for destruction. She must make it a known