"Laumer, Keith - Retief's Peace" - читать интересную книгу автора (Laumer Keith)

Chapter One

Second suns-set was an hour past, but the sky, ablaze with the myriad gleaming suns of the Shamballa
Cluster, shone with brilliance enough to read even the five-point italic type of a footnote to a standard
CDT Stern Note of Protest rendered in its most tightly spaced third-level obfuscese. Second Assistant
Deputy Undersecretary Jame Retief of theCorps Diplomatique Terrestrienne was at that moment less
interested in the radiance of B'rukley's night sky, however, than he was with the angry tenor of the
gathering crowd.

The mob had been building itself to a frenzy all afternoon, beginning with a demonstration at the
university campus at firstnoon, then spilling out in all directions until seemingly every street and corner of
the sprawling Terry enclave of High Gnashberry was packed either with marching, chanting protesters or
the silent throngs of B'ruklian natives enjoying the spectacle. The focus of the march, apparently, was the
Plaza of Articulate Naivetщ, directly in front of the glass, faux marble, and antique plasteel elegance of the
Terran Embassy. The plaza already was packed, standing room only, and more and more protesters
were streaming in from every direction.

Retief had a good view, standing, as he did, head and shouldersЧand a bit moreЧabove the heads of
the thronging local populace. He struck a dopestick alight and leaned against the ivy-cluttered faчade of a
university bookstore, typical of such establishments, filled with books, tapes, and tri-D disks on
everything from theoretical economic calculus and artistic meditation to pornographic histories of galactic
exploration. The store was empty at the moment. Everyone in the city, it seemed, had turned out on this
star-radiant evening to watch the marching Terries.

"Whatcher doin' there, Terry?" a leather-faced local grated in harshly gargled Standard at Retief's elbow.
"Why'n't youse marchin' fer a piece of yer valiant comrades an' their war?"

"I thought I'd sit this one out," he replied easily in B'rukkk, the local patois. "All that marching for either
pieceor peace can be hard on the feet."

"Unh," the local agreed in the same language, nodding his massive, knobbed and wrinkled head. The
long-jawed, crocodilian head showed uneven rows of carnivore teeth. "Good point. Though, I dunno.
You Terries is only got two feet to get sore. Now, when a B'ruklian gets sore feet, he's got something to
gripe about! Like the Holy Mystic Fortune Cookies say, if you muffle your noofnard, you'll regret it come
suns-rise."

"Wise words to live by," Retief agreed. "But then, all of our weight is distributed on two feet instead of
on eight. Four times the ground pressure, you see?"

"Yeah . . . yeah." The octocentauroid native nodded as he chewed on the idea. "Never thought of it that
way." He shifted back to Standard. "Geeze, how d'youse Terries manage, anyway?"

"We're tougher than we look," Retief replied, matching the local's linguistic shift. "Some of us sit through
four-hour staff meetings on economic policy to build up our stamina. After a few of those, a twenty-mile


hike sounds like heaven."

"Yeah? What's this . . . whatchacallum . . . 'sit'?"