"Murray Leinster - The Pirates of Zan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

At the gate of the embassy enclosure, staff members piled up boxes and bales and parcels for transport to the
space-port and thence to destinations whose names were practically songs. There were dispatches to Delil, where the
Interstellar Diplomatic Service had a sector headquarters, and there were packets of embassy-stamped invoices for
Lohala and Tralee and Famagusta. There were boxes for Sind and Maja, and metal-bound cases for Kent. The early
explorers of this part of the galaxy had christened the huge suns with the names of little villages and territories back on
Earth.
The sound of the stacking of freight parcels was crisp and distinct in the morning hush. The dew deposited during
the night had not yet dried from the pavement-of the square. Damp, unhappy figures loafed nearby. They were the
secret police, as yet unrelieved after a night's vigil about the em-bassy's rugged wall. They were sleepy, and their
clothing stuck soggily to them, and none of them had anything warm to eat for many hours. They had not, either,
anything to look forward to from their superiors. Hoddan was again in sanc-tuary inside the embassy they'd guarded
so ineptly through the dark. He'd gotten out without their leave, and had made a number of their fellows quite
uncomfortable. Then he had made all the police and municipal authorities ridiculous by the manner of his return. The
police guards about the embassy were positively not in a cheery mood. But one of them saw an embassy servant he
knew. He'd stood the man drinks, in times past, to establish a contact that might be useful. He smiled and beckoned to
the man.
The embassy servant came briskly to him, rubbing his hands after having put a moderately heavy case of
docu-ments on top of the waiting pile.
"That Hoddan," said the plainclothesman, attempting hearty ruefulness," he certainly put it over on us last night!"
 The servant nodded.
"Look," said the plainclothesman," there could be some-thing in it for you if youтАФhmтАФwanted to make a little
extra money."
The servant looked regretful.
"No chance," he said. "He's leaving today."
The plainclothesman jumped.
"Today?"
"For Darth," said the embassy servant. "The ambassador's shipping him off on the spaceliner that came in last
night."
The plainclothesman dithered.
"How's he going to get to the spaceport?"
"I wouldn't know," said the servant. "They've figured out , some way. I could use a little extra money, too."
He lingered, but the plainclothesman was staring at the innocent, inviolable parcels about to leave the embassy for
distant parts. He took note of sizes and descriptions. No. Not yet. But if Hoddan was leaving, he had to leave the
embassy. If he left the embassy . . .
The plainclothesman bolted. He made a breathless report by the portable communicator. He told what the embassy
servant had said. Orders came back to him. Orders were given in all directions. Somebody was going to distinguish
himself by catching Hoddan, and undercover politics worked to decide who it should be. Even the job of guarding
the embassy became desirable. So fresh, alert plainclothesmen arrived. They were bright eyed and bushy tailed, and
they took over. Weary, hungry men yielded up their posts. They went home. The man who'd gotten the clue went
home too, disgruntled because he wouldn't be allowed a share in the credit for Hoddan's actual capture.-But he was
glad of it later.
Inside the embassy, Hoddan finished his breakfast with the ambassador.
"I'm giving you," said the ambassador, "a letter to that character on Darth. I told you about him. He's some sort of
nobleman and has need of an electronic engineer. On Darth they're rare to nonexistent. But his letter wasn't too
specific."
"I remember," agreed Hoddan. "I'll look him up. Thanks."
"Somehow," said the ambassador, "I cherish unreasonable
hopes for you, Hoddan. A psychologist would say that your group identification is low and your cyclothymia
practically a minus quantity, while your ergic tension is pleasingly high. He'd mean that with reasonable good fortune
you will raise more hell than most. I wish you that good fortune. And Hoddan-^"