"Mike Resnick - Ivory" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

moved on, leaving the mountainтАФand the planetтАФcompletely deserted.

It had remained deserted for almost a millennium, until the day that Tembo Laibon claimed it as his own,
erected a dome at the very apex of the mountain, and called it the House of Blue Lights, in
acknowledgment of the eternal storm that raged overhead. The House of Blue Lights was ostensibly a
tavern, but of course nobody came to the ninth planet of distant Beta Greco merely to drink. In fact, it
was precisely because Athenia was so far out on the Galactic Rim and so far from humanity's seats of
power that the House of Blue Lights flourished, not so much as a bar but as a meeting place for outlaws
and fugitives of all races. The many-limbed Kreboi, who inhabited Beta Greco III and had no love of the
Democracy, gave Tembo Laibon permission to operate and extended their protection to include his
world.

And now some two dozen humans and nine non-humans sat in the main room of the tavern, ignoring the
brilliant blue explosions that illuminated the atmosphere outside the dome. Two men sat huddled with a
trio of elongated, crimson-skinned, narrow-eyed Canphorites, negotiating the price for a secret cache of
laser weapons; a flashily-dressed silver-haired man was telling two slightly-bored companions fantastic
tales of the Dreamwish Beast and other myths of the spaceways; a delicate, crystalline being from the
Atrian system, his body enclosed in a suit designed to muffle potentially dangerous sounds, sat motionless
in a corner, staring balefully at the airlock for no discernable reason; a pair of elegant women, exquisitely
coiffured, were bartering their services to a quartet of men who obviously had no need to haggle but
seemed to enjoy it anyway; two furry, tripodal Lodinites were arguing with a corpulent and obviously
unsympathetic man over the price of a rare Doradusian carving that sat on the table before him.

In a corner four men, another Canphorite, and a Kreboi were playingjabob , a card game that had been
invented half a galaxy away. The game was entering its seventh month and had had a total of 403
participants. When a player was broke, or tired, or hungry, or decided that he had business elsewhere,
he turned his seat over to the next in line. Three men currently sat at an adjacent table, each waiting their
turn to join the game.

But despite all this activity, everyone knew that there was another game going on behind locked doors in
Tembo Laibon's back roomтАФthegame.

The room itself had always been the subject of much speculation, for it was here that Tembo Laibon kept
his storehouse of personal treasures. Above the hand-carved bar were four mounted heads of hideous,
flesh-eating beasts from Earth itself, while pelts of still other animals covered the entire back wall. There
were a score of long metal spears on display, as well as a number of small wood carvings locked inside a
glass case. And, finally, there were the twin pillars of gently curved ivory that dominated the room,
towering above everyone, man and alien alike, who was permitted to see them.

Tembo Laibon himself was there, all six foot nine inches of him, his black skin shining like polished
ebony, clad as always in the pelts of alien animals. He sipped a green concoction from a tall glass, wiped
his lips, and looked around the table as he began shuffling the cards.

To his immediate left was the alien known only as the Gorgon, a huge, purple-skinned monstrosity who
claimed to be from the New Roanoke system. Everyone knew that the New Roanoke system was
uninhabited, but one look at his bulging muscles and protruding fangs was sufficient to convince them to
suspend their disbelief and inquire no further into his origins or past. Nobody knew how many sentient
beings the Gorgon had killed, but rumor had the total well above one hundred.

The Gorgon had been losing heavily for the past two hours, and, not much of a talker to begin with, he