"Poor Planet" - читать интересную книгу автора (McIntosh J T)

McIntosh, J. T. - Poor PlanetPOOR PLANET
J. T. McIntosh



I never was the tough he-man lady-killer type of spy, even when I was a lot
younger. On the very rare occasions when beautiful girls enticed me into their
bedrooms on exotic worlds, the whole operation was only too obviously designed
to find out what IТd found out, and the lovely ladies in question not only knew
that I knew it, but knew that I knew that they knew itЧwhich tended to remove
much of the glamor from the situation, and all the sex.
And by the time I landed at Arneville, capital of the planet Solitaire, to try
to solve the enigma of a world that ought to be rich but wasnТt, I was still
less tough, still less of a he-man, than I had been when I was a mere stripling
of thirty-five or forty. By the time I reached Arneville I was forty-eight,
married, with three adolescent children. Terran Intelligence had only managed to
talk me into going, and Phyllis into letting me go, because I was a historian
and the job needed a genuine historian, and because intelligence agents hardly
ever failed to return from Solitaire (so named because it was the only planet of
its sun).
Solitaire let them come, let them sniff around for a while, and let them go,
none the wiser. Occasionally, it was true, agents did not come back. Presumably
theyТd found out something. But the mortality rate was not high Чand Phyllis is
a soldierТs daughter, complete with stiff upper lip.
The first thing I noticed when I emerged from Arneville spaceport was that it
was a cold city. (The fact that I knew this already, having done my homework,
did not prevent me from noticing it.) Although the city wasnТt bitingly,
grindingly cold, it was never far above freezing-point. The previous nightТs
snow was melting as I arrived and crashing in powdery avalanches from the roofs.
The overhangs were constructed so that all this soft snow cascaded into the
streets, missing the sidewalks. The people hurrying about didnТt even look up.
The next thing I noticed about Arneville was that it was old-fashioned. It was
like a twentieth or even nineteenth century Earth city transported many
light-years and four centuries to Solitaire. The buildings, vehicles and clothes
I saw were all heavy and solid and stolid, with not a hint of frivolity about
any of them. Things on Solitaire were made to last, and last, and last.
I had got this far in my observations as I emerged from the spaceport and looked
about me when a man came up to me. УMr. Edwin Horsefeld, from Earth?Ф the
stranger asked diffidently.
СYes,У I said, looking at him. He was the oldest teenager I had ever seen, with
the bland innocent fresh-faced look of a kid of fourteen although he must have
been thirty-five at least. He was enthusiastic, shy, intense, determined to do
his job well. Naturally he must be a counter-espionage agent.
СIТm Tom Harrison,У he said eagerly. ФIТve been asked to contact you and give
you any help I canЧУ
СBy whom?У I asked pleasantly.
СSome government departmentЕ F.R.S., I think it was.У
My opinion of SolitaireТs counter-espionage division, quaintly named Foreign
Relations Security, went up several points. You had to admire a department that
told you it knew you were a spy and offered to help you.