"Larry Niven - Limits" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

already done so. Perhaps the idea amused Minterl's new rulers. A restaurant in
Nihilil's Castle! Reached only by boats! At any rate, nobody else wanted the
probably haunted tower.

The restaurant was the top floor. The floor below would serve as an inn;
but as custom decreed that the main meal was served at noon, it was rare for
guests to stay over. Rordray and his wife and eight children lived on the
third floor down.

Though "Rordray's Attic" was gaining some reputation on the mainland,
the majority of Rordray's guests were fishermen. They often paid their score
in fish or in smuggled wines. So it was that Thone found Rordray and Merle
hauling in lines through the big kitchen window.

Even Rordray looked small next to Merle. Merle was two and a half yards
tall, and rounded everywhere, with no corners and no indentations: his chin
curved in one graceful sweep down to his wishbone, his torso expanded around
him like a tethered balloon. There was just enough solidity, enough muscle in
the fat, that none of it sagged at all.

And that was considerable muscle. The flat-topped fish they were
wrestling through the window was as big as a normal man; but Merle and Rordray
handled it easily. They settled the corpse on its side on the center table,
and Merle asked, "Don't you wish you had an oven that size?"

"I do," said Rordray. "What is it?"

"Dwarf island-fish. See the frilly spines all over the top of the thing?
Meant to be trees. Moor at an island, go ashore. When you're all settled the
island dives under you, then snaps the crew up one by one while you're trying
to swim. But they're magical, these fish, and with the magic dying away -- "

"I'm wondering how to cook the beast."

That really wasn't Merle's department, but he was willing to advise.
"Low heat in an oven, for a long time, maybe an eighth of an arc," meaning an
eighth of the sun's path from horizon to horizon.

Rordray nodded. "Low heat, covered. I'll heat it first. I can fiddle up
a sauce, but I'll have to see how fatty the meat is...All right, Merle. Six
meals in trade. Anyone else could have a dozen, but you -- "

Merle nodded placidly. He never argued price. "I'll start now." He went
through into the restaurant section, scraping the door on both sides, and
Rordray turned to greet his son.

"We have guests," said Thone, "and we have red meat, and we have a
bigger boat. I thought it proper to bargain for you."

"Guests, good. Red meat, good. What have you committed me to?"