"E. E. Doc Smith - D'Alembert 10 - Revolt of the Galaxy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

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E. E. 'DOC' SMITH
With STEPHEN GOLDIN

Revolt of the Galaxy

Volume 10 in The Family d'Alembert Series


CHAPTER 1
A Stranger to DesPlaines
The heavy-gravity world of DesPlaines ranked reasonably high in galactic commerce. Sometimes
called the "slagheap of the Universe," the planet was rich in heavy metals and precious stones,
and did a creditable export business in those resources. The Circus of the Galaxy, owned and
operated by the noble d'Alembert family, toured throughout the Empire and brought a sizeable
amount of income into DesPlaines' coffers. Even the citizens themselves were a valuable commodity.
With their lightning reflexes and above-normal strength, DesPlainians were always in demand as
Marines, bodyguards, or criminals. By taking advantage of its geological and human resources,
DesPlaines had turned a hellish environment into a prosperous and comfortable place for its
natives to live.
One industry that was not big on DesPlaines, how ever, was tourism. People from worlds with more
standard gravities - which included all but a tiny percentage of the settled galaxy - dared not
visit DesPlaines with out being surrounded by specialized equipment. The constant three-gee pull
could easily provoke heart attacks and breathing difficulties even in people in superb physical
condition if that weren't bad enough, a simple fall - at three times the speed it would happen
elsewhere - could prove fatal.
People from offworld usually dealt with DesPlainians via subetheric communications. If more
personal contact was required, the DesPlainian often would visit the offworlder; sometimes a
compromise would be reached and the offworlder would rendezvous with his DesPlainian contact on
one of DesPlaines's three moons, where gravity was only one-fifth gee and everyone could relax.
Only the most desperate circumstances could compel someone from a normal-grav world to visit the
surface of DesPlaines itself.
There were other high-grav worlds, of course, the most well-known being Purity and Newforest, but
their citizens seldom traveled. The Puritans shunned the spiritual contamination they felt would
be inevitable if they had much intercourse with people less wholesome than themselves. The
Newforesters were a clannish group who preferred their own sometimes backward ways, and who had
until recently kept apart from the mainstream of galactic society.
Thus the major spaceports on DesPlaines were designed primarily with cargo in mind. There were
some passengers, of course; with DesPlainians in such demand throughout the Empire there were
always some departing for or returning from other worlds. But DesPlainian spaceports tended to be
large, open, barn-like buildings with plain walls and few of the amenities to be found in more
well-traveled ports. The walls were not hung with colorful displays of DesPlainian night spots or
scenic wonders; the few chairs scattered about the floor were institutional and uncomfortable. The
faded tile on the floors was clean but badly scuffed; there was little point in improving it when
so few people ever saw it in the first place. The harsh lighting cast sharp shadows on the walls
and floors, and the air perpetually smelled of perfumed disinfectants.
Today, though, the freighter Anatolia brought with it a paying passenger whose destination was
indeed DesPlaines. She was a young woman, perhaps twenty years old, with long black hair and a
deep olive complexion. She had enormous brown eyes and thick, sensuous lips that highlighted her