"E. E. Doc Smith - The Galaxy Primes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

too far away tonight to make it feasible to come back here, send me a flash. Brownie, you'll work this town first.
Belle and I will have to work in the library for a while. We'll all want to compare notes tonight...'
'Yeah,' James said into the pause, 'I could tune in remote, but I don't know where I'll be, so it might not be so good.'
'Check. You can 'port, but be damn sure nobody sees or senses you doing it. That buttons it up, I guess.'
James and Lola left the ship; Garlock and Belle went into the library.
'If I didn't know you were impotent, Clee,' Belle said, laughing, 'I'd be scared to death to be alone with you in this
spaceship. Lola hasn't realized yet what she really hatched out - the screamingest screamer ever pulled on anybody!'
'It isn't that funny. You have got a hostile sense of humor.'
"Perhaps.' She shrugged her shoulders. 'But you were on the receiving end, which makes a big difference. She's a
peculiar sort of duck. Brainy, but impersonal - academic. She knows all the words and all their meanings; all the
questions and all the answers, but she doesn't apply any of them to herself. She's always the observer, never the
participant. Pure egghead ... pure? Thafs it. She looks, acts, talks, and thinks like a virgin ... Well, if that's all, she
isn't any - or is she? Even though you've started calling her "Brownie", you might not...' She broke off and stared at
him.
'Go ahead. Probe.'
'Why waste energy trying to crack a Prime's shield? But just out of curiosity, are you two pairing, or not?"
Garlock smiled calmly. Don't be inurbane. Let's talk about
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Jim instead. I thought he'd be gibbering.'
'No, I'm working under double wraps - full dampers. I don't want him in love with me. You want to know why?'
'I think I know why.'
'Because having him mooning around underfoot would weaken the team and I want to get back to Tellus.'
'I was wrong, then. I thought you were after bigger game.'
Belle's face went stiff and still. 'What do you mean by that?'
'Plain enough, I would think. Wherever you are, you've got to be the Boss. You've never been in any kind of a party
for fifteen minutes without taking it over. When you snap the whip everybody jumps - or else - and you swing a
wicked knife. For your information I don't jump, I'm familiar with knives, and you will never run this project or any
part of it.'
Belle's face set; her eyes hardened. 'While we're putting out information, take note that I'm just as good with actual
knives as with figurative ones. If you're still thinking of blistering my fanny, don't try it You'll find a rawhide haft
sticking up out of one of those muscles you're so proud of.'
'Why don't you talk sense, instead of just shooting off your mouth like that?'
'Huh?'
'I know you're a Prime, too, but don't let it go to your head. I've got more stuff than you have, so you can't Gunther
me. You weigh one thirty-five to my two seventeen. I'm harder, stronger, and faster than you are. You're probably a
bit more Umber - not too much - but I've forgotten more judo than you ever will know. So what's the answer?'
Belle was breathing hard. 'Then why don't you do it right now?'
'Several reasons. I couldn't brag much about licking anybody I outweigh, by eighty-two pounds. I can't figure out
your logic - if any - but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't do either of us any good. Just the opposite.'
'From your standpoint, would that be bad?'
'What a Hell of a logic! You've got the finest brain of any woman living. You're stronger than Jim is, by more than
the Prime-to-Op ratio. You've got more initiative, more drive, more guts. You know as well as I do what your brain
may
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mean before we get back. Why in all hell don't you start using it?'
'You are complimenting me?'
'No. It's the truth, isn't it?'
'What difference does that make? Clee Garlock, I simply can't understand you at all.'
'That makes it mutual. I can't understand a geometry in which the crookedest line between any two given points is