"Larry Niven - Crashlander (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

children.

So I was shaping a bribe to offer Ander, and telling myself that he wasn't too big to be killed
if things broke right, and hoping that none of that showed at all while I played for time.

I asked, "What's your concern with puppeteers? They're harmless. They're cowards."

"Are cowards harmless?"

"And they're gone."

Ander smiled at me. "And you were the one who sent them. Beowulf, why would they deal with you a
second time? You blackmailed them."

"They don't mind blackmail; they use it themselves. And what I thought I knew might not be
true." I caught that smirk again and snapped, "All right, what?"

"Tides," Ander said. "We've been watching their, ah, retreat. The Pierson's puppeteers
understand tides very well, Beowulf, whether or not they ever had a moon."

"All right." I believed him and wasn't surprised.



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"By the way, that information is absolutely proprietary --"

"Man with a secret, hah? Even so, I think they were taking a shot at me when they hired me the
second time."



AT THE CORE

I.

I couldn't decide whether to call it a painting, a relief mural, a sculpture, or a hash, but it
was the prize exhibit in the art section of the Institute of Knowledge on Jinx. The Kdatlyno must
have strange eyes, I thought. My own were watering. The longer I looked at FTLSPACE, the more
blurred it got.

I'd tentatively decided that it was supposed to look blurred when a set of toothy jaws clamped
gently on my arm. I jumped a foot in the air. A soft, thrilling contralto voice said, "Beowulf
Shaeffer, you are a spendthrift."

That voice would have made a singer's fortune. And I thought I recognized it -- but it couldn't
be; that one was on We Made It, light-years distant. I turned.