"Andrew J. Offutt - Spaceways 01 - Of Alien Bondage" - читать интересную книгу автора (Offutt Andrew J)

They didn't like his business and they didn't like his shrewdness and they
didn't like him. They did want very much to meet him, but not to discuss his
caution or his shrewdness, and not just for a nice visit. If ever he slipped
and was caught by any policers anywhere in the worlds-teeming galaxy, he would
be in for a long, long visit. If he survived. Captain Jonuta's business was
people. Humans, mostly. He sold many, though he bought few. They were
available for the taking on non-tech planets, provided one was cautious, and
careful. Jonuta was called many things by many people. At least one of those
nicknames he had earned: Captain Cautious. He was a thick, tallish man of
about 180 centimeters, called sems. His build was powerful and he exercised on
shipboard, twice daily. His black eyes were ambushed beneath thick, straight
eyebrows at the base of a lofty forehead. (It was growing loftier, as wavy
black hair crept back from it.) His nose was broad of nostril and thin at the
bridge, and his mouth was full and bow-shaped. He had big harry hands and
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excellent legs within grass-green tights of equhyde-which meant simply a
simulated leather hardly distinguishable from the real thing. The fabric even
breathed. His long-tailed coat 10 with its double row of buttons was
scarlet. Those sixteen buttons (of prass, and purely ornamental) were its only
adornment, and they were enough. They flashed like purest brass. From his very
broad cordovan belt (equhyde) hung a pistol called a stopper. From the end of
the holster swung two strips of rawhide-imitating equhyde, because Jonuta
understood and enjoyed romantic attire. The big buckle was a fancy coat of
arms, though Jonuta did not know of whom or what or from where. The tall black
boots were evershine equhyde too, or Jonuta could not have borne them. Captain
Jonuta of Coronet was no fool. He knew he looked striking and formidable. He
looked like a pirate of another era. He was not; he did not attack other
spacecraft in quest of booty. Jonuta was a slaver. Now, in Coronet's
con-cabin, he spoke into the little grille set just at head level: his, when
he stood. It connected him with Coronet's in-gravity spaceboat. "There are two
humans or humanoids down there. Pheromonal readings are a bit confused, but
they are definitely of different sexes-mostly, at least. You are
ready?" "Ready and standing by, Captain." "Boat away." Thump and hiss, and the
boat was away. It swooped downward, slicing through this uncivilized planet's
ridiculous cloud layer. It made the waiting bulk of Coronet quite
invisible. Jonuta did not sit back to wait. He fed two little pieces of
information to SIPACUM-ship's computer -and peeled gunbelt and coat. It was
nicely lined and under it he wore a sweat-absorbing short-sleeved, col-larless
shirt of Panishi cotton. While the boat carried his two procurement agents
down to the planetary surface, Jonuta calmly began exercising. One:
Barbarism God saw that the light was good. God separated the light from the
darkness, calling the light Day and the darkness Night. Genesis, 1:.4,5 1 It
resembled a single white, drooping feather trailing a thousand cloud-white
pieces of fringe. It was not; it was a large bird, and it paused on a
leper-bark branch to coo its quivering cry into the rain forest. An answering
ululation came from the mass of trees and foliage. Only the golden-chested
bird could distinguish the call from one of its own sex. It did. It seemed to