"H. Beam Piper - Lone Star Planet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piper H Beam)

effort to overtake us. The chauffeur cursed and fired his auxiliary jets, then his rocket-booster.

Immediately, black rocket-fuel puffs shot away from the pursuing aircars.

Hoddy turned in his seat, cranked open a porthole-slit in the window, and poked one of his eleven-mm's
out, letting the whole clip go. Thrombley and Gomez slid down onto the floor, and both began trying to
drag me down with them, imploring me not to expose myself.

As far as I could see, there was nothing to expose myself to. The other cars kept coming, but neither of
them were firing at us. There was also no indication that Hoddy's salvo had had any effect on them. Our
chauffeur went into a perfect frenzy of twisting and dodging, at the same time using his radiophone to tell
somebody to get the goddamn gate open in a hurry. I saw the blue skies and green plains of New Texas
replacing one another above, under, in front of and behind us. Then the car set down on a broad stretch
of concrete, the wings were retracted, and we went whizzing down a city street.

We whizzed down a number of streets. We cut corners on two wheels, and on one wheel, and, I was
prepared to swear, on no wheels. A couple of times, with the wings retracted, we actually jetted into the
air and jumped over vehicles in front of us, landing again with bone-shaking jolts. Then we made an
abrupt turn and shot in under a concrete arch, and a big door banged shut behind us, and we stopped, in
the middle of a wide patio, the front of the car a few inches short of a fountain. Four or five people, in
diplomatic striped trousers, local dress and the uniform of the Space Marines, came running over.
Thrombley pulled himself erect and half-climbed, half-fell, out of the car. Gomez got out on the other side
with Hoddy; I climbed out after Thrombley.

A tall, sandy-haired man in the uniform of the Space Navy came over.

"What the devil's the matter, Thrombley?" he demanded. Then, seeing me, he gave me as much of a
salute as a naval officer will ever bestow on anybody in civilian clothes.

"Mr. Silk?" He looked at my costume and the pistols on my belt in well-bred concealment of surprise.
"I'm your military attach├й, Stonehenge; Space-Commander, Space Navy."

I noticed that Hoddy's ears had pricked up, but he wasn't making any effort to attract Stonehenge's
attention. I shook hands with him, introduced Hoddy, and offered my cigarette case around.

"You seem to have had a hectic trip from the spaceport, Mr. Ambassador. What happened?"

Thrombley began accusing our driver of trying to murder the lot of us. Hoddy brushed him aside and
explained:

"Just after we'd took off, two other cars took off after us. We speeded up, and they speeded up, too.
Then your fly-boy, here, got fancy. That shook 'em off. Time we got into the city, we'd dropped them.
Nice job of driving. Probably saved our lives."

"Shucks, that wasn't nothin'," the driver disclaimed. "When you drive for politicians, you're either good or
you're good and dead."

"I'm surprised they started so soon," Stonehenge said. Then he looked around at my fellow-passengers,
who seemed to have realized, by now, that they were no longer dangling by their fingernails over the
brink of the grave. "But gentlemen, let's not keep the Ambassador standing out here in the hot sun."