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

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Uncharted Stars by Andre Norton

Chapter One
It was like any other caravansary at a space port, not providing quarters
for a Veep or some off-planet functionary, but not for a belt as sparsely
packed with credits as mine was at that moment either. My fingers twitched
and I got a cold chill in my middle every time my thoughts strayed to how
flat that belt was at present. But there is such a thing as face, or
prestige, whatever name you want to give it, and that I must have now or
fail completely. And my aching feet, my depressed spirits told me that I was
already at the point where one surrendered hope and waited for the
inevitable blow to fall. That blow could only fell me in one direction. I
would lose what I had played the biggest gamble of my life to win--a ship
now sitting on its tail fins in a field I could have sighted from this hotel
had I been a Veep and able to afford one of the crown tower rooms with
actual windows. One may be able to buy a ship but thereafter it sits eating
up more and more credits in ground fees, field service--more costs than my
innocence would have believed possible a planet month earlier. And one
cannot lift off world until he has a qualified pilot at the controls, the
which I was not, and the which I had not been able to locate.
It had all sounded so easy in the beginning. My thinking had certainly been
clouded when I had plunged into this. No--been plunged! Now I centered my
gaze on the door which was the entrance to what I could temporarily call
"home," and I had very unkind thoughts, approaching the dire, about the
partner waiting me behind it.
The past year had certainly not been one to soothe my nerves, or lead me to
believe that providence smiled sweetly at me. It had begun as usual. I,
Murdoc Jern, had been going about my business in the way any roving gem
buyer's apprentice would. Not that our lives, mine and my master Vondar
Ustle's, had been without exciting incident. But on Tanth, in the spin of a
diabolical
"sacred" arrow, everything had broken apart as if a laser ray had been used
to sever me not only from Vondar but from any peace of mind or body.
When the sacrifice arrow of the green-robed priests had swung to a stop
between Vondar and me, we had not feared; off-worlders were not meat to