"L Ron Hubbard - Mission Earth 03 - The Enemy Within" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hubbard L. Ron)

The shower seemed to be running again. "She seems to be taking another bath," I said.
"I think it was the small boys," said Melahat. "They were pretty dirty."
And, indeed, it must have been. In about ten minutes, one of the small boys went out the
garden door and came around to the patio. It was the one I had kicked most. His hair was plastered
with water and he looked two shades lighter. He was wearing a pair of embroidered pants and an
embroidered jacket. Where had those come from? Turkish national dress! Oh, of course, the wild


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people of the desert!
"Utanc," said the boy, impudently, "says that Sultan Bey better take a bath and put a turban
on. That he looks too scruffy to be sung to!"
I started to kick him and then thought better of it. The meaning of the message sank in. Aha!
She was going to get right on the job!
I hurried off. I took a bath. I went into my costume department and found a cloth to wind
into a turban and also a caftan to wear.
Finally I went out. Melahat and Karagoz and the two small boys had been doing things to the
salon. I was glad now I had let Karagoz buy all those new rugs. The servants had set up a little
raised dais with cushions on it. They indicated I was to sit there. There was a pile of pillows in
the middle of the floor, some distance from and lower than where I was to sit.
Karagoz, apparently on instructions, turned the lights very low. Two oil lamps were set up to
drift a soft yellow-orange flame light through the room.
The staff stole away.
I sat on the dais, cross-legged, and waited for Utanc.

Chapter 5

In about twenty minutes, the salon door cracked open slightly. I was aware that an eye was at
the slit. But I knew how shy, modest and bashful she must be and I was afraid to frighten her with
sudden movements so I sat still.
The door opened a trifle wider. Like a shadow, she slid through it. She halted. The yellow-
orange flame light reached her.
She was dressed in baggy pantaloons and a very tight vest that hid her breasts but left her
throat and belly bare. She wore no slippers and her toenails were bright scarlet. She had a band
of flowers around her raven-black hair. She was veiled!
But her eyes, slightly slanted, very large, were fixed on me in what might be fear.
She had one hand up under her veil and I could see that one fingertip must be gripped
bashfully between her teeth.
I beckoned for her to come on in.
She very nearly fled.
I stopped my motion. A minute went by. Gradually, she seemed to gather courage and came fully
into the room. In her left hand she bore a couple of musical instruments.
Timidly, she approached the pillows in the center of the room. I could see her better. Her
skin was a tawny color. I could not see her face because of the veil but her eyes, downcast and
flicking up only occasionally, were beautiful.
She put down one instrumentтАФI saw that it was about eighteen inches in diameter, a sort of
tambourine.
Gracefully she sank, cross-legged, on a pillow. She put the other instrument in her lap. I