"Harry Harrison - SSR 09 - The Stainless Steel Rat Goes to He" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

In a very few minutes two important facts were made clear. Other than the drops of blood,
there were no visible human remains or traces of anyone living or dead. There was the ruined hail
and next t9 it the burnt and crushed room that had held large amounts of electronic equipment. All
of it now apparently-and deliberately-destroyed beyond any possibility of recognition.
But where was Angelina?

I waited until the ruined building had been examined and reexamined. Nothing new was
discovered and I was just wasting my time at the site. The police had vetted every spacer that had
left the planet since the explosion and would keep on doing so.
Neither Angelina-nor even anyone who resembled her in the slightest-had been recorded as
being aboard any of them. There was nothing I could do here.
I drove slowly home, obeying all traffic regulations. Stopping for pedestrians and waving
them on. I rolled through the remains of the garage door and parked the bike. Went straight to
the bar where I threw out the flat drink sitting there and prepared a small but stiff replacement
before I dug into the E-mail printouts. The twins were on the way. Both were off-planet so it
would be a few days at least before they arrived. They did not go into details but I knew that
they were now buying, cajoling, bribing-perhaps stealing-the fastest means of transportation in
the known universe. They would be here. Our little clan may have rejected the outside worlds and
their values-but this made our own cohesion that much stronger.
But now we had to wait for plodding technology to sift, examine and assess the ruins of
the Temple of Eternal Truth-and present a coherent picture of what had happened there. There was
nothing I could do until I got the police report. I tried to contact Rowena in the hospital but
was given the brush-off. Querying her more would have to wait until she had recovered a bit.
Lussuoso was rich and technically efficient and would do the search-and-analyze job as well as-or
better than-any other planet we had visited. I hated this place but gave it all credit for
technical competence. My mind kept trying to numerate all the terrible possibilities of Angelina's
disappearance....
Don't dwell on it, Jim, I told myself firmly. You have chosen to lead what others might
consider a strange and possibly criminal life. I began to wish I had stayed with crookery and away
from the Special Corps. I was always uneasy on the right side of the law. Even more I regretted
coming here. Yet it had seemed like a good idea at the time.
This was a paradise planet and unbelievably expensive. To move here I had had to tap into
bank accounts untouched for years. I even had to draw in some long-overdue debts and that had not
been easy to do. I mean not easy in the sense of heavy weapons and a number of people in the
hospital before the accounts were closed. A life of crime is not always profitable- particularly
when I had some unwelcome assignments from the Special Corps. Certainly my saving the universe had
been exciting, but not money-making in the slightest. The same thing happened when I ran for
president of Paraiso Aqui. Good fun, but again no money involved. So between these kinds of legal
jobs, Angelina and I had done a number of other jobs that filled our coffers while depleting those
of others. Enough had been stored away for a rainy day that had proved to be a sunny one here. It
had all been well worth it since Angelina was happier here than she bad ever been before. I even
forgot how much I hated the place when she smiled and kissed me. It had all started simply enough.
"Have you ever heard of Lussuoso?" she had asked.
"A new drink-or something you rub onto the skin?"
"Don't always play the fool, Jim diGriz. I mean every day there is something about it in


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