"H. Beam Piper - Graveyard of Dreams" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piper H Beam)

Tom Brangwyn went to the table, taking off his belt and holster and laying his pistol aside. The others,
crowding into the room, added their weapons to his.

That was something else Conn was seeing with new eyes. It had been five years since he had carried a gun
and he was wondering why any of them bothered. A gun was what a boy put on to show that he had reached
manhood, and a man carried for the rest of his life out of habit.

Why, there wouldn't be a shooting a year in Litchfield, if you didn't count the farm tramps and drifters, who
kept to the lower level or camped in the empty buildings at the edge of town. Or maybe that was it; maybe
Litchfield was peaceful because everybody was armed. It certainly wasn't because of anything the Planetary
Government at Storisende did to maintain order.

After divesting himself of his gun, Tom Brangwyn took over the bartending, getting out glasses and filling a
pitcher of brandy from a keg in the corner.

"Everybody supplied?" Fawzi was asking. "Well, let's drink to our returned emissary. We're all anxious to
hear what you found out, Conn. Gentlemen, here's to our friend Conn Maxwell. Welcome home, Conn!"

"Well, it's wonderful to be back, Mr. FawziтИТтИТ"

"No, let's not have any of this mister foolishness! You're one of the gang now. And drink up, everybody. We
have plenty of brandy, even if we don't have anything else."

"You telling us, Kurt?" somebody demanded. One of the distillery company; the name would come back to
Conn in a moment. "When this crop gets pressed and fermentedтИТтИТ"

"When I start pressing, I don't know where in Gehenna I'm going to vat the stuff till it ferments," Colonel
Zareff said. "Or why. You won't be able to handle all of it."

"Now, now!" Fawzi reproved. "Let's not start moaning about our troubles. Not the day Conn's come home.
Not when he's going to tell us how to find the Third FleetтИТArmy Force Brain."

"You did find out where the Brain is, didn't you, Conn?" Brangwyn asked anxiously.

That set half a dozen of them off at once. They had all sat down after the toast; now they were fidgeting in
their chairs, leaning forward, looking at Conn fixedly.

"What did you find out, Conn?"

"It's still here on Poictesme, isn't it?"


Graveyard of Dreams 8
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"Did you find out where it is?"

He wanted to tell them in one quick sentence and get it over with. He couldn't, any more than he could force
himself to squeeze the trigger of a pistol he knew would blow up in his hand.