"John Norman - Gor 02 - Outlaw of Gor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norman John)

any harm. My touch seemed to snap him out of his strange mood. He handed
the ruined truncheon meekly back to the bartender.

'I'm sorry,' said Cabot. 'Really.' He reached into his wallet and pressed a
bill into the bartender's hands. It was a hundred dollar bill.

We put on our coats and went out into the February evening, into the light
snow.

Outside the bar we stood in the snow, not speaking. Cabot, still
half-drunk, looked about himself, at the brutal electric geometry of that
great city, at the dark, lonely shapes that moved through the light snow,
at the pale glimmering headlights of the cars.

'This is a great city,' said Cabot, 'and yet it is not loved. 'How many are
there here who would die for this city? How many who would defend to the
death its perimeters? How many who would submit to torture on its behalf?'

'You're drunk,' I said, smiling.


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'This city is not loved,' he said. 'Or it would not be used as it is, kept
as it is.'

He walked sadly away.

Somehow I knew that this was the night on which I would learn the secret of
Tarl Cabot.

'Wait!' I cried to him suddenly.

He turned and I sensed that he was glad that I had called to him, that my
company on that night meant a great deal to him.

I joined him and together we went to his apartment. First he brewed a pot
of strong coffee, and act for which my swirling senses were more than
grateful. Then without speaking he went into his closet and emerged
carrying a strongbox. He unlocked this with a key which he carried on his
own person, and removed a manuscript, written in his own clear, decisive
hand and bound with twine. He placed the manuscript in my hands.

It was a document pertaining to what Cabot called the Counter-Earth, the
story of a warrior, of the siege of a city, and of the love of a girl. You
perhaps know it as Tarnsman of Gor.

When, shortly after dawn, I had finished the account, I looked at Cabot,