"E. E. Doc Smith - D' Alembert 4 - Getaway world" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

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GETAWAY WORLD

Volume four of The classic Family d'Alembert series

By E.E. 'Doc' Smith
With Stephen Goldin

CHAPTER 1
A Chat with Lady A

The young woman looked vastly out of place standing in the line of people waiting to file
through the debarkation gate and receive billeting assignments. Tall and lithe, beautiful
and dignified, she looked like a tulip growing in a cactus garden. The rest of her queue
mates were the scum of a dozen worlds; virtually all of them, male and female alike,
were graduates of the roughest schools in the Galaxy-the imperial prison system. They
were tough and, for the most part, ill educated; one could tell their planets of origin by
the brand of slang they spoke and the choice of obscenities with which they peppered
their conversation.

In contrast, the young woman was striking in her cleanliness. Her clothing fitted her with
fidelity, and had been fashioned by one of Earth's finest designers. Her eyes had a deep
look of intelligence to them, and her long black hair was neatly trimmed. Her stance, the
way she tilted her head, the expression of cool self-assurance-all testified to the fact that
this woman was something special, born to wealth if not to the nobility itself.

She stood patiently in the corridor that had once been painted white, but was now
scratched and faded to a dismal shade of gray. Her eyes stared straight ahead at the
tables where the computer programmers were feeding the information on people's cards
into their quietly humming machines. She seemed totally unaware of the lecherous
glances from the men around her, or of the envious stares from the women. When the
person at the front of the line was finished, she moved forward with the rest; but as for
any other interaction with her queue mates, she might as well have been a statue.

Finally her turn came. She handed over her cards to the woman at the front table, who
took them routinely without looking up and began typing them into the computer. "Name?"
the clerk asked in a bored tone.

"Hazel Whiting," the young lady replied. "It's on the card, if you'd bother to look."

The cultured timbre of that voice made the clerk look up. She was obviously startled; she
wasn't used to seeing people of such obvious quality in this place. "What's someone like
you doing here?" she asked involuntarily.

"The same as everyone else-looking for sanctuary." The clerk was doubtful. This young
lady looked too clean, too innocent and too intelligent to be needing this planet's
specialized services. Her left foot reached out and pushed the hidden button that would
notify the boss that something was not quite right here; the trivision cameras in the
corners would beam the scene to his office, where he could make a decision without the