"Smith, E E 'Doc' - SubSpace Vol 2 - Subspace Encounter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

"Right away, Your Ability; thank you!" the girl caroled, and took off on the run.

Starrlah cut com, sat down on the edge of the couch, licked her lips, and gulped twice. "I
feel better, darling," she said then. "The way that hyena of a doctor howled, you can't be
in any real danger . . . but I thought I'd killed you . . . and what could I have . . . it simply
petrifies me, to think. . . .

"Nothing like that, sweetheart. " Their hands met and clung. "In fact, I'm pretty sure we
could. . . ...

"But I'm absolutely sure we won't," she declared. "Not without permission in writing.
Being scared to death once is enough." She bent over and kissed him, gently but with
plenty of meaning; and he returned the caress fully in kind. "Besides, it'll keep-and
without spoiling. So as you were saying? No, not that, either-say something else."

"Okay, I've been wondering. I know that high-stars have as much grief as anybody; but I
can't visualize you as being either close enough to a Garshan-even a high-stat
Garshan-or near him long enough to develop that much hatred."

"I wouldn't let him get close to me at all. Ever That's what started all the trouble."

He didn't say anything; just looked at her questioningly. She went on, "I know. Practically
every man from a planet barbarous enough so that men still make the approaches is
decent enough to act civilized while he's on a civilized planet, but that egregious stinker
wasn't. I also know that Garshans are absolutely pure of blood-no monkey business with
any member of any other race. Any Garshan who fathers or mothers a cross-breed
feeds the eagles. Together with the 'breed. But he, the putrescent monster, wasn't even
a good Garshan-except in that the harder I smacked him down the more determined he
became to make me."

"Sure. That made it a point of Garshan honor. He'd get you if it was the last thing he ever
did in this life."

"That's right. Well, as long as I had status on him I could kick him in the teeth and I did, in
spite of his terrific in with Grand Justice Laynch of Garsh, and his gutsy assumption that
being a champion bladesman gave him the right to push an in with His Magnificence.
What I didn't think of was that I was already at the very top of my status possibility and
he wasn't. So when he got status on me he began really to close in on me, with every
slimy, poisonous maneuver he could possibly execute. So I finally had to do one of
three-and only three things. First, start looking at the ceiling past that revolting, gloating
puss. Second, kill him myself or hire it done-with every chance in the world that the Purps
would pin it onto me and feed me to the eagles. Third, engineer it so that the insufferable
monster would die legally and naturally. Actually, inevitably-of an occupational hazard."
She paused and gazed at him innocently, eye to eye.

He got it instantly. "Eagles death!" he exploded. "So that's how I got onto the table with
him so easily! But how? Even with your status, how could you work that trick."

She laughed. "It was so simple, really, that when I finally thought of it I cursed myself all