"Laumer, Keith - Retief of the COTUC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Laumer Keith)

hammer said complacently. "At this moment,
the guru is meditating in the mountains, sur-
rounded by his chelas, or disciples, known as

Tsuggs in the local patois."

"Did you say ... Hoobrik?" Magnan queried
uncertainly. "Goodness, what a coincidence
that he should have the same name as that
ruffian of a bandit chief who had the unmiti-
gated effrontery to send one of his strong-arm
men to threaten Your Excellency!"

Clawhammer's pink features deepened to a
dull magenta which clashed sharply with his
lime-green early-late-mid-aftemoon hemi-demi-
semi-informal seersucker dickey-suit. "I fear,
Magnan," he said in a tone like a tire iron
striking flesh, "that you've absorbed a num-
ber of erroneous impressions. His Truculence,
Spiritual Leader Hoobrik, dispatched an em-
issary, it's true, to propose certain accommo-
dations sphere-of-influence-wise; but to proceed
from that circumstance to an inference that
I have yielded to undue pressures is an un-
warranted speculative leap!"

"Possibly I just misinterpreted his messen-
ger's phraseology, sir," Magnan said with a
tight little smile. "It didn't seem to me that
'foreign bloodsuckers' and 'craven paper-push-
ers' sounded all that friendly."

" 'IPBMs may fry our skins, but words will
never hurt us,' eh, sir?" the Econ Officer piped
brightly, netting himself a stab of the Ambas-
sadorial eye.
"Still, it's rather strong language," Colonel

RETIEF OF THE CDT 25

Saddlesore spoke up to fill the conversational
gap. "But I daresay you put the fellow in his
place, eh, Mr. Ambassador?"

"Why, as to that, I've been pondering the
precisely correct posture to adopt vis-a-vis the
Tsuggs, protocol-wise. I confess for a few mo-
ments I toyed with the idea of a beefed-up
804-B: Massive Dignity, with overtones of