"Andre Norton - Jern Murdock 02 - Uncharted Stars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

illegalways of gaining my knowledge. The Guild had a long and accurate
memory.There was a third course. I could throw up everything--turn on my heel
andwalk away from the door I was about to activate by thumb pressure
onpersonal seal, take a position in one of the gem shops (if I could
findone), forget Eet's wild dream. Even throw the stone in my belt into
thenearest disposal to remove the last temptation. In fact, become as
ordinaryand law-abiding a citizen as I could.I was greatly tempted. But I
was enough of a Jern not to yield. Instead Iset thumb to the door and at the
same time beamed a thought before me ingreeting. As far as I knew, the
seals in any caravansary, once set toindividual thumbprints, could not be
fooled. But there can always be a firsttime and the Guild is notorious for
buying up or otherwise acquiring newmethods of achieving results which even
the Patrol does not suspect havebeen discovered. If we had been traced
here, then there just might be areception committee waiting beyond. So I
tried mind-touch with Eet forreassurance. What I got kept me standing
where I was, thumb to doorplate,bewildered, then suspicious. Eet was there. I
received enough to be sure ofthat. We had been mind-coupled long enough for
even tenuous linkage to beclear to my poorer human senses. But now Eet was
withdrawn, concentratingelsewhere. My fumbling attempts to communicate
failed.Only it was not preoccupation with danger, no warn-off. I pressed my
thumbdown and watched the door roll back into the wall, intent on what
laybeyond. The room was small, not the cubby of a freeze-class traveler,
butcertainly not the space of a Veep suite. The various fixtures
werewall-folded. And now the room was unusually empty, for apparently Eet
hadsent every chair, as well as the table, desk, and bed back into the
walls,leaving the carpeted floor bare, a single bracket light going.A circle
of dazzling radiance was cast by that (I noted at once that it hadbeen set on
the highest frequency and a small portion of my mind begancalculating
how many minutes of that overpower would be added to our bill).Then I saw what
was set squarely under it and I was really startled.As was true of all port
caravansaries, this one catered to tourists as wellas business travelers.
In the lobby was a shop--charging astronomicalprices--where one could buy
a souvenir or at least a present for one'sfuture host or some member of
the family. Most of it was, as always, aparade of eye-catching local
handicrafts to prove one had been on Theba,with odds and ends of exotic
imports from other planets to attract theattention of the less
sophisticated traveler. There were always in suchshops replicas of the
native fauna, in miniature for the most part. Somewere carved as art, others
wrought in furs or fabrics to create a very closelikeness of the original,
often life-size for smaller beasts, birds, orwhat-is-its. What sat now in
the full beam of the lamp was a stuffed pookha.It was native to Theba. I had
lingered by a pet shop (intrigued in spite ofmy worries) only that morning to
watch three live pookhas. And I could wellunderstand their appeal. They
were, even in the stuffed state, luxury itemsof the first class. This one was
not much larger than Eet when he drew hislong thin body together in a
hunched position, but it was of a far differentshape, being chubby and plump
and with the instant appeal to my species thatall its kind possess. Its
plushy fur was, a light green-gray with a faintmottling which gave it the
appearance of the watered brocade woven onAstrudia. Its fore-paws were
bluntly rounded pads, unclawed, though it waswell provided with teeth, which