"H. Beam Piper - The Space Viking" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piper H Beam)

ship in hyperspace; boredom is the worst enemy. My guns-and-missiles officer,
Van Larch, is a painter. Most of his work was lost with the Corisande on
Durendal, but he kept us from starving a few times on Flamberge by painting
pictures and selling them. My hyperspatial astrogator, Guatt Kirbey, composes
music; he tries to express the

14

mathematics of hyperspatial theory in musical terms. I don't care much for it,
myself," he admitted. "I study history. You know, it's odd; practically
everything that's happened on any of the inhabited planets has happened on
Terra before the first spaceship."

The garden immediately around them was quiet, now; everybody was over by the
landing-stage escalators. Harkaman would have said more, but at that moment he
saw half a dozen of Sesar Karvall's uniformed guardsmen run past. They were
helmeted and in bulletproofs; one of them had an autorifle, and the rest
carried knobbed plastic truncheons. The Space Viking set down his drink.

"Let's go," he said. "Our host is calling up his troops; I think the guests
ought to find battle stations, too."

III

THE GAILY-DRESSED crowd formed a semicircle facing the landing-stage
escalators; everybody was staring in embarrassed curiosity, those behind
craning over the shoulders of those in front. The ladies had drawn up their
shawls in frigid formality; many had even covered their heads. There were four
news-service cars hovering above; whatever was going on was getting a
planetwide screen showing. The Karvall guardsmen were trying to get through;
their sergeant was saying, over and over, "Please, ladies and gentlemen; your
pardon, noble sir," and getting nowhere.

Otto Harkaman swore disgustedly and shoved the sergeant aside. "Make way,
here!" he bellowed. "Let these guards pass." With that, he almost hurled a
gaily-dressed gentleman aside on either hand; they both turned to glare
angrily, then got hastily out of his way.

Meditating briefly on the uses of bad manners in an emergency, Trask followed,
with the others. The big Space Viking plowed to the front, where Sesar Karvall
and Rovard Grauffis and several others were standing.

Facing them, four men in black cloaks stood with their backs to the
escalators. Two were commonfolk retainers; hired gunmen, to be precise. They
were at pains to keep


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