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

Test. That's not exactly spaceslime, tovarishch."
Pias shook his head as he tried to soothe his Sister-in-law's temper. "I didn't mean to imply you
weren't any good, but Newforest is a special case. We stayed isolated from the rest of the Empire
until two generations ago. We've got a language of our own and a very distinct culture. Outsiders
are viewed with great suspicion and distrust, and it would take you weeks, maybe even months, to
learn everything you'd need to be able to pass for a native. I just can't afford the delay. If Tas
would try to kill Beti, who knows what he'll do to the rest of the family - or to the rest of
Newforest. I've got to stop him quickly."
The argument continued, but in the end Pias was victorious. He would travel to Newforest alone and
investigate his brother's activities. He did promise that if any action were to be taken he would
notify Yvonne as well as SOTE Headquarters on Earth, giving his sister-in-law a chance to get in
on the adventure.
Pias left for Newforest a few hours later in one of the small private ships the d'Alembert family
kept at Felicit├й's spacefield. It was a long trip from DesPlaines to Newforest, and Pias had
plenty of time to consider the strategy he would use in his investigation.
The first thing he would have to do was disguise him self. As a young marquis and heir to the
planet, he had always been a popular figure and his appearance was well known to most of the
populace. By the edict of the kriss, the council of elders, he was a nonperson and anyone who saw
him was supposed to treat him as though he didn't exist. That would make it hard to obtain any
information from the people about what was really happening on Newforest. Even worse, Pias was
afraid that someone recognizing him would inform Tas, and then he'd be in trouble.
To avoid that problem he dyed his sandy brown hair a deep black, changed his hairline with
plucking and growth inhibitors, used skin pigments to darken his complexion, and applied a thick
mustache to his normally bare upper lip. He inserted contact lenses to change his eye color from
blue to brown. For hours he practiced speaking in a voice that was higher and more nasal than his
usual tones, and he gave himself a trace of a country accent that would label him as coming from
well outside the capital city of Garridan where the Bavol family made its home.
Landing on Newforest would be awkward. Because of its high gravity, no one went there casually -
and because it had little heavy industry or interstellar trade, the planet attracted even fewer
visitors than DesPlaines did. Anyone landing at the spaceport was an immediate object of suspicion
- and particularly so if he arrived in a personal spaceship. Very few Newforesters could afford
their own private ships; landing at Garridan Space port would attract undue attention - something
an undercover agent preferred to avoid.
Pias would have to land somewhere unofficially. There was a range of hills about thirty kilometers
south of the town where he thought he might come down unseen. He hated the thought of walking so
far into town, but he could think of no alternative. Meanwhile, in preparation, he went through
the ship as thoroughly as he could, removing anything that might identify it. If someone spotted
it while he was gone, he didn't want to leave any clues pointing to himself or, worse, to the
d'Alemberts of DesPlaines. He'd also brought along some cases of expensive perfume and some mildly
pornographic sensable tapes; if planetary officials examined the ship, they'd think he was a
smuggler, not a spy.
He'd thought a secret landing would be easily arranged. Garridan was not a busy port and its
detection equipment was largely unsophisticated. Since there was no naval base there either, there
should have been no detectors capable of spotting his small craft - or, if they did spot him,
there would be no resources for tracking him down and following him to his landing site. He would
be at most a momentary enigma that would fade from their memories almost as fast as he faded from
their sensor screens.
His ship emerged from subspace about twenty million kilometers out from Newforest and quickly
began spiraling in. His troubles began just before he reached the uppermost levels of the planet's
atmosphere. An official radio announcement demanded that he identify himself immediately or face