"Norton, Andre - Cat's eye" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

"Kyger," he said into the mike.

"Kyger's," the finder announced. "Gentle Homoa,
Gentle Ferns--visit Kyger's, where the living treasures
of a thousand worlds are paraded before you! See and
hear the Lumian talking fish, the dofuld, the priceless
Phaxian change-coat--the only one of its kind known
to be in captivity alive. Follow the light, Gentle Homo,
Gentle Fern, to Kyger's--merchant dealer in extraor-
dinary pets!"
10

A small spark, which had glowed into life on the
wall below the map, loosed itself and now danced
through the air ahead, blinking with a gem flash. A
pet shop! The inquiry about animal knowledge was
now explained. But Troy lost some of his zest. The
thin story he had told the assignor was now thinner,


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to the point of being full of holes. He was ten years
out of Norden, ten years away from any contact with
animals at all. Yet Troy clung to one hope. The assignor
had sent him, and the machine was supposed to be
always right in its selection.

He looked about him. The massed foliage of the
center square was a riot of luxuriant vegetation, which
combined plants and shrubs from half-a-dozen worlds
into a pattern of growing--red-green, yellow-green,
blue-green, silver-- And he began to long with every
fiber of his semistarved body that he would be the one
Kyger wanted, even for just one day.

His spark guide danced up and down, as if to center
his attention on the doorway before which it had
paused, and then snuffed out. Troy faced Kyger's display
and drew a deep breath of wonder, for he seemed to be
staring at four different landscapes, each occupying
one-quarter of the space. And each landscape was
skillfully contrived so that a section of an outlandish
planet had been transported in miniature. In each,
small creatures moved about the business of living
and dying. It was all art tri-dee, of course, but the
workmanship was superb and would completely en-
thrall any prospective customer.