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

"The hell you don't," Knuaire put in, speaking aloud. He was a tall, lithe, young,
white-skinned man with gray eyes and curly brown hair, who had not been making any
secret at all of the fact that he thought Marrjyl of Orm was really something. "It's a fact
that many such vessels were destroyed in storms.

That makes it all the more unjustifiable for Naizlon the Younger to have employed an
indefensible figment of his own imagination when an actual happening, accurate in every
detail, would have served him just as well artistically and emotionally, and infinitely better
in every other way. Marr"he turned to the girl." you're a sweetheart-a darling-a girl after
my own heart. My profound congratulations! You're the first person I've ever met who
didn't bow down and worship Slaaran art, cockeyed as it is. If permitted, I'd kiss you on
both cheeks."

"Thanks, Knu! Wonderful! The way Rod was looking at me, pinning my ears flat to my
skull, I was about to begin to be ashamed of myself, but now I won't have to. And as for
kissing, there's a lot nicer place for that than that," and she proceeded to demonstrate.

"There is, at that," the Spathian agreed, as he cooperated enthusiastically in the
demonstration. Then, when the girl broke contact, he jerked his thumb to indicate a group
of people flying toward their landing stage on a sharply downward slant from the north
and said, "Some of our gang coming in. If the rest of them are on time-and they probably
will be everybody will be here in less than fifteen minutes. So listen, Marr. If you don't
want to get skinned alive, rubbed with salt, drawn, decapitated, and quartered before
being fed to the eagles, don't ever again tell anyone except me the truth about Slaaran
art. Not even Rod here, and I won't either. We'll keep it a secret between ourselves; just
whisper it to each other once in a while." And, with a conspiratorial grin, Knuaire of
Spath, Vice President of the Institute and-unofficially-its Assistant Chief Psiontist, went to
the lock to welcome the visitors.

There were twelve people in this group. While they were unharnessing, six more came in
at short intervals, two couples and two singles. Eighteen people; the highest-powered
psiontists of eighteen different worlds; white, yellow, red, brown, and black. There were
other groups of psiontists on many worlds, but they were more isolated, less organized;
and at this point it seemed prudent to exclude them from the Institute's plans. Few of the
eighteen had previously met any of the others, but each knew at least one of the three
hosts; and, while everything was peculiarly silent, the ether was full of greetings and of
flying thoughts.

Most surprising, perhaps, was the meeting of two persons who had attended a seminar
together right here on Meetyl, had met several times before, but without either having
had any suspicion that the other was psionic. One was a tall, yellow skinned,
brown-haired girl, very attractive in an awkward, coltish way, who couldn't have been a
day over fourteen, Tellus-equivalent. She glanced once at a short, brown
skinned-Malayan type-youth, a few years older than herself, and uttered a piercing shriek
that was physical as well as mental.

"Dal! Of all the people I never expected to see here, you, Sonrogo Dallarr of Brith, are
positutely the last! What a gorgeous shield you've got."