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

a pair of boots clinging tightly to his thin legs and
extending knee-high, fashioned of reptile skin as soft
as glove leather, giving off tiny prismatic sparks with
every movement of their wearer. About a slight potbelly
he had a belt of the same hide, and the knife that
swung from it was not only longer but also wider than
those usually worn in Tikil.

"Come--" His voice was guttural. A crook of finger
pointed the way, and Troy followed him through two
more showrooms into a passage from which opened a
number of screened doors. Now the effluvium of
animal--a great many animals--was strong, and
sounds from each of the screened doors they passed
testified to the stock Kyger kept on hand. Troy's guide
continued to the end of the hall, set his small hand
into the larger impression of a palm lock, and then
stood aside for Horan to enter.

If the yellow man was an oddity, the man who sat
waiting for Troy to cross his office was almost as great
a surprise. Horan had seen many of the merchants of
Tikil, and all of them had been glittering objects indeed.
Their jewels, their ultrafashionable dress, their eye-
catching coiffures had all been designed as advertise-
ments to attract general attention.

But Kyger, if this was Kyger, was no such starburst.
His muscular body was covered with a hora-silk half
tunic and kilt, but the color was a dark and sober
blue, and he wore no jewels at all. On his right wrist
was the broad service bracelet of a veteran spacer
with at least two constellations starring its sweep,
while his skull was completely shaven as if to accom-
modate the helmet of a scout-ship man. The bareness
of that deeply tanned stretch of skin made the red,
13

puckered acar down along his right ear the more
noticeable. Troy wondered fleetingly why he chose to
keep that disfiguring brand; plastic surgery could have
erased it completely.

The other regarded Troy for a long moment, his
stare both as aloof and as searching as that the yellow
man had used through the door panel.