"Robertson, R Garcia - Gone To Glory" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robertson R Garcia Y)

-- staring dumbly at the ring of narrow Cro-Magnon faces.

Helio tried signs. Grudgingly the Thai responded enough to indicate that he was
not Tuch-Dah. He was Kee-too-Hee, from the marshes. He had found the recorder in
a salt pan and trekked down to the station, hoping to get a reward. Instead he
was being held prisoner and insulted. This did not altogether surprise him, but
did not please him either.

Ellenor Battle studied the recorder, then passed it to Defoe with a grim, "What
do you think?" The first time she had asked his opinion. Touched, he had his
navmatrix go over the recorder. No sign of tampering. But this was an idiot box
with sensors, playing back what was put in.

Defoe nodded at the Thai. "He's telling the truth. At least about not being
Tuch-Dah. That circle and dot on his cheek is a Kee-too-Hee clan mark. Any right
thinking Tuch-Dah would cut his throat with a dull clamshell before claiming to
be a Kee-too-Hee."

"But what was the recorder doing sitting on a salt pan?" Ellenor sounded
unconvinced. Rightly so as far as Defoe could see. "Give him his reward," she
decided. "AID will pay. But don't let him go until we come back from the crash
site."

The crash site lay across the Azur. Defoe watched the approach from the control
cat's foredeck, standing before wide wraparound windows. He felt Helio's firm
hand on the elevators, anticipating changes in trim, keeping the keel angle
constant. North of Azur Station the shoreline became a maze of salt marsh
teaming with spoonbills and wild boar. Then came the Azur itself, bright green
in the shallows, deep blue in the center.

Helio pointed out his plantation, a great green delta thrust out into the sea.
On the landward side a long straight north-south fence kept his domestic herds
from straying into Tuch-Dah country. West of the fenceline was a knoll topped
with a black smear left by the burnt semi-rigid. Helio descended, dodging tall
columns of vultures. Never a good sign.

Ellenor told Hello to turn out the Joie's crew.

"Have them go through the long grass around the knoll."

"Looking for what?" The rancher sounded skeptical.

"Whatever they find."

On the ground, Defoe was struck by how peaceful it seemed. This was the
Saber-tooth Steppe, a silent mysterious savanna, its mystique as solid and
tangible as a patch of unterraformed bedrock. The semi-rigid's small control-car
was intact, showing no sign of having come down hard. Blackened girders formed
big looping curves. They might have been spares ready to be assembled into
another ship.