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

"Yes?"
"I urge you not to be vengeful," explained the ambassa-dor, "but I do hope you won't be too forgiving of these
characters who'd have jailed you for life. You've scared them badly. It's very good for them. Anything more you can do
along that line will be really a kindness, even though it will positively not be appreciated. But it'll be well worth doing. I
say this because I like the way you plan things. And any time I can be of service . . ."
"Thanks," said Hoddan. "Now I'd better get going for the spaceport." He'd write Nedda from Darth. "I'll get set for
it."
He rose. The ambassador stood up, too.
"I like the way you plan things," he repeated appreciatively. "We'll check over that box."
They left the embassy dining room together.
It was well after sunrise when Hoddan finished his break-fast, and the bright and watchful new plainclothesmen
were very much on the alert outside. By this time the sunshine had lost its early ruddy tint, and the trees about the city
were vividly green, and the sky had become appropriately blue-as the skies on all human-occupied planets are. There
was the beginning of traffic. Some was routine movement of goods and vehicles. But some was special.
For example, the trucks which came to carry the embassy shipment to the spaceport. They were perfectly ordinary
trucks, hired in a perfectly ordinary way by the ambassador's secretary. They came trundling across the square and
into the embassy gate. The ostentatiously loafing plainclothesmen could look in and see the waiting parcels loaded
on them. The first truck load was quite unsuspicious. There was no package in the lot which could have held a man
even the most impossibly cramped of positions.
But the police took no chances. Ten blocks from the embassy the cops stopped it and verified the licenses and
identities of the driver and his helper. This was a moderately lengthy business. While it went on, plainclothesmen
walked over the packages in the truck's body and put stethoscopes to any ^of more than one cubic foot capacity.
They waved the truck on. Meanwhile the second truck was loading up. And those watching, saw that the last item
to be loaded was a large box which hadn't been seen before. It was carried with some care, and it was marked fragile,
put into place and wedged fast with other parcels.
The plaincothesmen looked at each other with anticipatory glee. One of them reported the last large box with almost
lyric enthusiasm. When the second truck left the embassy with the large box, a police truck came innocently out of
nowhere and just happened to be going the same way. Ten blocks away, again the truckload of embassy parcels was
flagged down and its driver's license and identity was verified. A plainclothesman put a stethoscope on the
questionable case. He beamed, and made a suitable signal.
The truck went on, while zestful, Machiavellian plans took effect.
Five blocks farther, an unmarked empty truck came hurt-ling out of a side street, sideswiped the truck from the
em-bassy, and went careening away down the street without stopping. The trailing police truck made no attempt at
pursuit. Instead, it stopped helpfully by the truck which had been hit. A wheel was hopelessly gone. So uniformed
police, with conspicuously happy expressions, cleared a space around the stalled truck and stood guard over the
parcels under diplo-matic seal. With eager helpfulness, they sent for other trans-portation for the embassy's shipment.
A sneeze was heard from within the mass of guarded freight, and the policemen shook hands with each other. When
substitute trucks cameтАФthere were two of themтАФthey loaded one high with embassy parcels and sent it off to the
spaceport with their blessings. There remained just one, single, large box to be put on the second vehicle. They
bumped it on the ground, and a startled grunt came frpm within.
There was an atmosphere of innocent enjoyment all about as the police tenderly loaded this large box on a second
truck. Strangely, they did not head directly for the spaceport. The police carefully explained this to each other in loud
voices. Then some of them were afraid the box hadn't heard, so they knocked on it. The box coughed, and it seemed
hilariously amusing to the policemen that the contents of a freight par-cel should cough. They expressed deep
concern andтАФad-dressing the boxтАФexplained that they were taking it to the Detention Building, where they would
give it some cough medicine.
The box swore at them, despairingly. They howled with childish laughter, and assured the box that after they had
opened it and given it cough medicine they would close it again very carefullyтАФleaving the diplomatic seal
unbrokenтАФ and deliver it to the spaceport so it could go on its way.
The box swore again, luridly. The truck which carried it