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

GRAM

I

They STOOD together at the parapet, their arms about each other's waists, her
head against his cheek. Behind, the broad leaved shrubbery gossiped softly
with the wind, and from the lower main terrace came music and laughing voices.
The city of Wardshaven spread in front of them, white buildings rising from
the wide spaces of green treetops, under a shimmer of sun-reflecting aircars
above. Far away, the mountains were violet in the afternoon haze, and the huge
red sun hung in a sky as yellow as a ripe peach.

His eye caught a twinkle ten miles to the southwest, and for an instant he was
puzzled. Then he frowned. The sunlight blazed on the two thousand foot globe
of Duke Angus' new ship, the Enterprise, back at the Gorram shipyards after


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her final trial cruise. He didn't want to think about that, now.

Instead, he pressed her closer and whispered her name, "Elaine," and then,
caressing every syllable, "Lady Elaine Track of Traskon."

"Oh, no, Lucas!" Her protest was half joking and half apprehensive. "It's bad
luck to be called by your married name before the wedding."

"I've been calling you that in my mind since the night of the Duke's ball,
when you were just home from school on Excalibur."

5

She looked up from the corner of her eye.

"That was when I started calling me that, too," she confessed.

"There's a terrace to the west at Traskon New House," he told her. "Tomorrow,
we'll have our dinner there, and watch the sunset together."

"I know. I thought that was to be our sunset-watching place."

"You have been peeking," he accused,. "Traskon New House was to be your
surprise."

"I always was a present-peeker, New Year's and my birthdays. But I
only saw it from the air. I'll be very surprised at everything inside," she
promised. "And very de lighted."

And when she'd seen everything and Traskon New House wasn't a surprise any