"H. Beam Piper - Police Operation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piper H Beam)

any extraterrestrial animal or object to any time-line on which space-travel is unknown. I don't care if he
is a green-seal thavrad; he'll face charges, when he gets back, for this!"

"He was a green-seal thavrad," Verkan Vall corrected. "And he won't be coming back."

"I hope you didn't have to deal summarily with him," Tortha Karf said. "With his title, and social position,
and his family's political importance, that might make difficulties. Not that it wouldn't be all right with me,
of course, but we never seem to be able to make either the Management or the public realize the
extremities to which we are forced, at times." He sighed. "We probably never shall."

Verkan Vall smiled faintly. "Oh, no, sir; nothing like that. He was dead before I transposed to that
time-line. He was killed when he wrecked a self-propelled vehicle he was using. One of those Fourth
Level automobiles. I posed as a relative and tried to claim his body for the burial-ceremony observed on
that cultural level, but was told that it had been completely destroyed [Pg 14] by fire when the fuel tank of
this automobile burned. I was given certain of his effects which had passed through the fire; I found his
sigil concealed inside what appeared to be a cigarette case." He took a green disk from the bag and laid
it on the desk. "There's no question; Gavran Sarn died in the wreck of that automobile."

"And the nighthound?"

"It was in the car with him, but it escaped. You know how fast those things are. I found that track"тАФhe
indicated one of the black castsтАФ"in some dried mud near the scene of the wreck. As you see, the cast
is slightly defective. The others were fresh this morning, when I made them."

"And what have you done so far?"

"I rented an old farm near the scene of the wreck, and installed my field-generator there. It runs through
to the Hagraban Synthetics Works, about a hundred miles east of Thalna-Jarvizar. I have my this-line
terminal in the girls' rest room at the durable plastics factory; handled that on a local police-power writ.
Since then, I've been hunting for the nighthound. I think I can find it, but I'll need some special equipment,
and a hypno-mech indoctrination. That's why I came back."

"Has it been attracting any attention?" Tortha Karf asked anxiously.

"Killing cattle in the locality; causing considerable excitement. Fortunately, it's a locality of forested
mountains and valley farms, rather than a built-up industrial district. Local police and wild-game
protection officers are concerned; all the farmers excited, and going armed. The theory is that it's either a
wildcat of some sort, or a maniac armed with a cutlass. Either theory would conform, more or less, to the
nature of its depredations. Nobody has actually seen it."

"That's good!" Tortha Karf was relieved. "Well, you'll have to go and bring it out, or kill it and obliterate
the body. You know why, as well as I do."

"Certainly, sir," Verkan Vall replied. "In a primitive culture, things like this would be assigned supernatural
explanations, and imbedded in the locally accepted religion. But this culture, while nominally religious, is
highly rationalistic in practice. Typical lag-effect, characteristic of all expanding cultures. And this
Europo-American Sector really has an expanding culture. A hundred and fifty years ago, the inhabitants
of this particular time-line didn't even know how to apply steam power; now they've begun to release
nuclear energy, in a few crude forms."