"Eric Frank Russel - The Great Explosion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russell Eric Frank)

planet showed evidence of being very sparsely settled.

There were no cities, towns or villages. They caught an occasional glimpse of a
ramshackle mass of buildings resembling an old and dilapidated monastery.
Almost invariably these were sited upon a hilltop or within the neck of land where
a river formed a loop.

No arterial roads could be seen and they were bulleting at too great an altitude to
identify footpaths. Several times they swept over great areas of forest and prairie
devoid of any sign of habitation. Once they crossed a huge gray desert broken by
circular formations of rocky outcrop inside one of which appeared to be an
encampment of twenty tents.

The Ambassador sniffed in disgust. "Hardly worth claiming. By the looks of it
they couldn't raise six regiments of space-troops much less an effective army.
Either they've been decimated by disease or they've found a way to go someplace
else."

"I can make a guess why they're fewer than expected," ventured Grayder after
some thought.

"Why?"


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"History says we shipped a million criminals. I don't recall ever reading how
many of them were female."

"Neither do I."

"Seems to me highly likely that women didn't number ten percent of the whole,"
Grayder added. "Probably the men were in a majority of at least nine to one."

"Not for long," guessed the Ambassador, using his imagination. "In a situation
like that a bunch of thugs would slaughter each other wholesale."

"You may be right." Grayder shrugged indifferently. "Let dog eat dog." He peered
through the fore observation-port. "We can't go round and round until we're dizzy.
Neither can we land just anywhere. A vessel this size needs a long, flat surface
and solid bedrock."

"Choose your own place," advised the Ambassador, "but try to pick it within easy
reach of an inhabitation, if possible. We've got to make contact somewhere."

Grayder nodded. "I'll do my best." He picked up the intercom phone and held it in
one hand while he continued to watch through the port. After quite a time he said,
"This is as good as anywhere," and started barking orders into the phone.