"C. L. Moore - Shambleau" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moore C. L)

come in from Venus. Have you eaten?"
"Yes," said the girl quickly. "I shill-need no-food for -a while."
"Well-" Smith glanced around the room. "I'll be in some-time tonight. You can go or stay just as
you please. Eetter lock the door behind me."
With no more formality than that he left her. The door closed and he heard the key turn. and
smiled to himself. He did not expect, then, ever to see her again. ,
He went down the steps and out into the late-slanting sunlight with a mind so full of other


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matters that the brown girl receded very quickly into the background. Smith's errand in
Lakkdarol, like most of his errands, is better not spoken of. Man lives as he must, and Smitli's
living was a

perilous affair outside the law and ruled by the ray-gun only. It is enough to say that the
shipping-port and its cargoes outbound interested him deeply just now, and that the friend he
awaited was Yarol the Venusian, in that swift little Edsel ship the Maid that can flash from world
to world with a derisive speed that laughs at Patrol boats and leaves pursuers floundering in the
ether far behind. Smith and Yarol and the Maid were a trinity that had caused the Patrol leaders
much worry and many gray hairs in the past, and the future looked very bright to Smith himself
that evening as he left his lodging-house.

Lakkdarol roars by night, as Earthmen's camp-towns have a way of doing on every planet where
Earth's outposts .are, and it was beginning lustily as Smith went down among the awakening lights
toward the center of town. His busi-ness there does not concern us. He mingled with the crowds
where the lights were brightest, and there was the click of ivory counters and the jingle of
silver, and red segir gurgled invitingly from black Venusian bottles, and much later Smith
strolled homeward under the moving moons of Mars, and if the street wavered a little under his
feet now and then-why, that is only understandable. Not even Smith could drink red segir at every
bar from the Martian Lamb to the New Chicago and remain entirely steady on his feet. But he found
his way back with very little difficulty-con-sidering-and spent a good five minutes hunting for
his key before he remembered he had left it in the inner lock for the girl.

He knocked then, and there was no sound of footsteps from within, but in a few moments the latch
clicked and the door swung open. She retreated soundlessly before him as he entered, and took up
her favorite place against the window, leaning back on the ' sill and outlined against the starry
sky beyond. The room was in darkness.

Smith flipped the switch by the door and then leaned back against the
panels, steadying himself. The cool night air had sobered him a little, and his head was clear
enough-liquor went to Smith's feet, not his head, or he would never have come this far along the
lawless way he had chosen.He lounged against the door now and regarded the girl in the sudden
glare of the bulbs, blinking a little as much at the scarlet of her clothing as at, the light.
"So you stayed," he said.
"I-waited," she answered softly, leaning farther back against the sill and clasping the rough wood
with slim, three-fingered hands, pale brown against the darkness.
'Why ?91