"H. Beam Piper - Four-Day Planet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piper H Beam)

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Four-Day Planet by H.
Beam Piper
Chapter One
THE SHIP FROM TERRA
I WENT THROUGH the gateway, towing my equipment in a
contragravity hamper over my head. As usual, I was wondering what it
would take, short of a revolution, to get the city of Port Sandor as clean
and tidy and well lighted as the spaceport area. I knew Dad's editorials
and my sarcastic news stories wouldn't do it. We'd been trying long
enough.

The two girls in bikinis in front of me pushed on, still gabbling about
the fight one of them had had with her boy friend, and I closed up behind
the half dozen monster-hunters in long trousers, ankle boots and short
boat-jackets, with big knives on their belts. They must have all been from
the same crew, because they weren't arguing about whose ship was fastest,
had the toughest skipper, and made the most money. They were talking
about the price of tallow-wax, and they seemed to have picked up a rumor
that it was going to be cut another ten centisols a pound. I eavesdropped
shamelessly, but it was the same rumor I'd picked up, myself, a little
earlier.

"Hi, Walt," somebody behind me called out. "Looking for some news
that's fit to print?"

I turned my head. It was a man of about thirty-five with curly brown
hair and a wide grin. Adolf Lautier, the entertainment promoter. He and
Dad each owned a share in the Port Sandor telecast station, and split their
time between his music and drama-films and Dad's newscasts.
 "All the news is fit to print, and if it's news the Times prints it," I told
him. "Think you're going to get some good thrillers this time?"

He shrugged. I'd just asked that to make conversation; he never had
any way of knowing what sort of films would come in. The ones the
Peenem├╝nde was bringing should be fairly new, because she was
outbound from Terra. He'd go over what was aboard, and trade one for
one for the old films he'd shown already.

"They tell me there's a real Old-Terran-style Western been showing on
Volund that ought to be coming our way this time," he said. "It was filmed
in South America, with real horses."