"Murray Leinster - Space Platform" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

"Sure I'm satisfied," snorted Haney. "I don't want to hit him any more. I got enough of that!"
"Okay! Okay!" The Chief released the panting Braun and he went groggily to his coat. He tried to put
himself in it. Mike caught Joe's eye and nodded meaningfully. Joe helped Braun into the coat. There was
silence, except for Braun's heavy, labored breathing.
He moved unsteadily toward the door. Then he stopped.
"Haney," he said with effort," I don't say I'm sorry for fighting you today. I fight first. But now I say I'm
sorry. You are good guy, Haney. I was crazy. IтАФgot reason."
He stumbled out the door and was gone. The four who were left behind stared at each other.
"What's the matter with him?" demanded Haney blankly.
"He's nuts," said the Chief. "If he was gonna apologizeтАФ"
Mike shook his head.
"He wouldn't apologize," he said brittley, "because you might think he was scared. But when he'd proved
he wasn't scared of a beatingтАФthen he could say he was sorry." He paused. "IVe seen guys I liked a lot
less than him."
Haney put on his coat.
"I don't get it," he rumbled. "Next time I see himтАФ"
"You won't," said Mike. "None of us will. I'll bet on it."
But he was wrong. The others went out of the storeroom and back into Sid's Steak Joint, and the Chief
politely thanked the proprietor for the loan of his storeroom for a private fight. Then they went out into the
neon lighted business street of Bootstrap.
"What do we do now?" asked Joe.
"Where are you sleeping?" asked the Chief hospitably, "I can get you a bunk at my place."
"I'm staying at the Shed," Joe told him awkwardly. "My family's known Major Holt a long time. I'm
staying at his quarters behind the Shed."
Haney raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.
"Better get out there then," said the Chief. "It's midnight and they might want to lock up. There's your
bus."
A lighted bus was waiting by the curb. Its doors were open, but it was empty of passengers. Single busses
ran out to the Shed now and then, but they ran in fleets at shift change time. Joe went over and climbed in.
"We'll turn up early," said the Chief. "This won't be a shift job. We'll look things over and lay out what we
want and then get to work. Right?"
"Right," said Joe. "And thanks."
Haney waved his hand. The three on the ground marched away, the two large figures of Haney and the
Chief completely hiding Mike from tune to time. When seen, though, his air was truculent. They were a
colorful trio, the reflection of all the many tinted signs upon them. They turned into a beer joint.
Joe sat in the bus alone. The driver was off somewhere. The sounds of Bootstrap by night were distinctive.
Footsteps, and the jangling of bicycle bells; voices, a radio blaring somewhere and a recordshop
loudspeaker somewhere else, over all a staccato noise of festivity.
There was a sharp rap on the glass by Joe's window. He started, and looked out. Braun, battered and
bleeding from the corner of his mouth, motioned urgently for him to come to the door of the bus. Joe
went.
Braun regarded him in a new fashion. Now he was neither dogged nor fierce nor desperate. Despite the
beating he had taken, he looked completely and somehow frighteningly tranquil. He looked like somebody
who has come to the end of torment and is past any feeling but that of relief.
"You," said Braun. "That girl with you todayтАФher pop is Major Holt, eh?"
Joe frowned reservedly and said that she was.
"You tell her pop," said Braun, "you got hot tip. Hot
tip! Look two kilometres north of Shed tomorrow. Hej find something bad. Hot! You tell him. Two
kilometres."
"Y-yes," said Joe, his frown increasing. "But look hereтАФ"