"Eric Frank Russell - Late Night Final" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russell Eric Frank)

positioned at precisely the same distances apart and making precisely the same
angles. The whole arrangement had that geometrical exactness beloved of the military
mind.
Pacing the narrow catwalk running along the top surface of his flagship, Commander
Cruin observed his toiling crews with satisfaction. Organization, discipline, energy,
unques-tioning obedienceтАФthose were the prime essentials of effi-ciency. On such
had Huld grown great. On such would Huld grow greater.
Reaching the tail-end, he leaned on the stop-rail, gazed down upon the concentric
rings of wide, stubby venturis. His own crew were checking the angles of their two
scouts already positioned. Four guards, heavily armed, came marching through the
ash with Jusik in the lead. They had six prisoners.
Seeing him, Jusik bawled: "Halt!" Guard and guarded stopped with a thud of boots
and a raise of dust. Looking up, Jusik saluted.
"Six specimens, sir."
Cruin eyed them indifferently. Half a dozen middle-aged men in drab, sloppily fitting
clothes. He would not have given a snap of the fingers for six thousand of them.
The biggest of the captives, the one second from the left, had red hair and was
sucking something that gave off smoke. His shoulders were wider than Cruin's own
though he didn't look half the weight. Idly, the commander wondered whether the
fellow had green eyes; he couldn't tell that from where he was standing.
Calmly surveying Cruin, this prisoner took the smoke-thing from his mouth and said,
tonelessly: "By hokey, a brasshat!" Then he shoved the thing back between his lips
and dribbled blue vapor.
The others looked doubtful, as if either they did not com-prehend or found it past
belief.
"Jeepers, no!" said the one on the right, a gaunt individual with thin, saturnine
features.
"I'm telling you," assured Redhead in the same flat voice.
"Shall I take them to the tutors, sir?" asked Jusik.
"Yes."' Unleaning from the rail, Cruin carefully adjusted his white gloves. "Don't
bother me with them again until they are certified as competent to talk." Answering
the other's salute, he paraded back along the catwalk.
"Seer' said Redhead, picking up his feet in time with the guard. He seemed to take an
obscure pleasure in keeping in step with the guard. Winking at the nearest prisoner,
he let a curl of aromatic smoke trickle from the side of his mouth.

Tutors Fane and Parth sought an interview the following evening. Jusik ushered them
in, and Cruin looked up irritably from the report he was writing.
"Well?"
Fane said: "Sir, these prisoners suggest that we share their homes for a while and
teach them to converse there."
"How did they suggest that?"
"Mostly by signs," explained Fane.
"And what made you think that so nonsensical a plan had sufficient merit to make it
worthy of my attention?"
"There are aspects about which you should be consulted," Fane continued
stubbornly. "The manual of procedure and discipline declares that such matters must
be placed before the commanding officer whose decision is final."
"Quite right, quite right." He regarded Fane with a little more favor. "What are these
matters?"