"NORTON, Andre- Night Of Masks (1964)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

Stowar's flat, emotionless eyes slid over the boy. He was frowning a little. "The choice is yours-now," he returned, but not as if he agreed. "When do you take him, Leeds?"

"Right away. Now, Kolherne"-the other swung to face Nik once more-"it's up to you. If you want that face, you have to be prepared to earn it, understand?"

Nik nodded. Sure he understood. Anything you wanted you had to earn, or take-if you were strong enough and well armed enough to make the grab practical. He did not doubt that Leeds was either one of the Guild or the Brethren, operating well on the cold side of any planetary or space law. But that did not bother him. Within the Dipple, one learned that the warmth of the law was for the free, not for the dispossessed and helpless. He was willing to walk the outlaw's road; that was no choice at all with the promised award ahead.

"This is the story- you're the son of a spaceman, my former first officer. I found you here, will sign bond for you. That will release you from the Dipple. The guard won't do much checking. They're glad to get anyone off the roster legally. Got anything you want to collect from a lock box, Nik?

What did he have to call his own? A tape reader and a packet of tapes. Nothing he really needed. And those belonged to the Kolherne who had no hope at all- save through their temporary means of escape. Now something as wild as anger or fear was boiling inside Nik; he could hardly keep it bottled down. He did not recognize it as hope.

"No - " His voice seemed so little under his control that he did not say more than that one word.

"Then, let's go!" Again that strong grasp bringing him up to his feet, steadying him. He stumbled across the room, out into Stowar's business quarters, hardly noting Moke Varn there. Moke was of no importance any more. This was one of Nik's dreams taking on the solid reality of flesh in the hand guiding him ahead, in the surprised expression on Moke's flat face, in the bubbling and churning in Nik's middle. He was drunk with hope and the excitement Leeds had fired in him.

"Now pay attention." Leeds' tone sharpened as they emerged into a mist that had followed the rain. "My name is Strode Leeds. I'm master of the Free Trader Serpent. Got that?"

Nik nodded.

"Your father was my first officer in the Day Star when the war broke out. He was killed when we were jumped by the Afradies on Jigoku. I've been searching the Dipples for you for the past three years. Luck, O Luck, are you riding my fins today! I couldn't have set this up better if I'd known you were going to come down out of the roof back in that warehouse. You stick with me, boy, and that luck has just naturally got to rub off a little on you!"

Leeds was smiling, the wide satisfied smile of a gambler ready to scoop up from the table more than his hoped-for share of the counters.

Nik, still a little wobbly on his legs, tried to match his stride to the captain's, willing to go where Leeds wished, holding to him the promise the other had made, the promise that still seemed part of a dream. He listened to Leeds' glib explanation at the Dipple Registration and nodded when the supervisor perfunctorily congratulated him on his luck. There it was-luck again. He who had never remembered seeing the fair face of fortune was beginning to believe in it with some of the fervor Leeds exhibited.

Then they were out of the Dipple. Nik dragged a little behind his companion, savoring that small wonder that was part of the larger. In all his existence on Korwar, he had been out of the Dipple's gray hush no more times than he could reckon on the fingers of one hand. Once to the hospital in a vain attempt to have them try skin growth on him again, to return defeated and aching with the pain of the medical verdict that it was useless. And the rest on hurried trips to the nearest tape shop to buy the third-hand, scratchy records that had been all the life he cared for. But now he was out-really out!

Leeds punched the code of a flitter at the nearest call box. It was beginning to rain again, and the captain jerked the shoulder hood of his tunic up over his head. Nik licked the moisture from that scar tissue that should have been lips.

Even rain was different beyond the Dipple walls; it tasted sweet and clean here.

As they seated themselves in the cab and Leeds set the controls, he glanced at the boy. The captain was no longer smiling. There was a sharp set to his mouth and jaw.

"This is only the first step," he said. "Gyna and Iskhag, they have the final decision."

Nik snapped back into tense rigidity. One part of him was apprehensive. So-there was a flaw in this "luck" after all? This was only what all his life had led him to expect.

"But," Leeds was continuing, "since the main play is mine, I've the right to say who's going to lift into this orbit-"

Nik's first seething glow had faded; his old-time control was back. All right, so Leeds had talked him out of the Dipple. He'd have to go right back if the captain's plan failed. Nowhere on Korwar could he show this face and hope for a chance for freedom-unless it was freedom to starve.

Korwar was a pleasure planet. Its whole economy was based on providing luxury and entertainment for the great ones of half the galaxy. There was no place in any of its establishments for Nik Kolherne. On another world, he might have tried heavy labor. But here they would not even accept him for the off-world labor draft once they took a good look at him.

The flitter broke away from the traffic lanes of the city and slanted out on a course that would take it to the outer circle of villas and mansions. Nik gazed down at a portion of the life he had never seen, the wealth of vegetation culled from half a hundred different worlds and re-rooted here in a mingled tapestry of growing and glowing color to delight the eyes. They lifted over a barrier of gray thorn, where the pointed branches and twigs were beaded with crystalline droplets-or were those flowers or leaflets? Then the craft came down on the flat roof of a gray-green house, part of its structure seeming to run back into the rise of a small hill behind it.

The rain splashed about them and poured off in runlets to vanish at the eaves of the building. Nik followed Leeds out of the flier, saw it rise and return to the city. Then he shivered and wiped his sleeve across his face.

"Move!" That was Leeds, giving his charge little or no time to look about him. The captain had his boots planted on a square block in the roof. He reached out a long arm and. caught at Nik, pulling him close. There was a shimmer about the edges of the block on which they stood. Abruptly the rain ceased to drive against them. Then the shimmer became solid, a silver wall, and Nik was conscious of a whine that was half vibration.

The silver became a shimmer again, vanished. They were no longer on the roof under the dull gray of the sky but in a small alcove with a corridor running from right to left before them.