"Smith, E E 'Doc' - d'Alembert 01 - The Imperial Stars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

The girl looked at him compassionately. The Service of the Empire did things to a man, changed him and made him more than a mere mortal. Its demands were harsher than a nagging wife. It took everything he had and then dumped him; tormented his failures with guilt and rewarded his successes with little more than a nod. But there was always the tradition and the glory ...

'There's not much more you could have done,' she said tenderly. 'You've used all our best agents.'

The man looked up, a far_away expression on his face. 'No I haven't. I held the best back, hoping I wouldn't have to use them. Maybe I didn't want to admit that the danger was this severe.'

He stood up and paced the room before finally stopping in front of the large picture window. From this height, the vista was magnificent, with waves from the Atlantic Ocean lapping gently against the shores of Miami Beach while the eastern sky darkened with the approach of night. It looked so peaceful that he was almost tempted to disbelieve all the plots that were working against the Empire. Almost.

'I'll admit it now,' he said. 'I made a mistake. I only hope it isn't too late to correct it.' He turned back to face the dark_haired girl. 'It's time for the Circus to come to town.'


CHAPTER TWO

JULES AND YVETTE

DesPlaines (Plan) 15 rev cat 4_1076_9525. Hostile PX_3MRKQ. Pop (2440) 7,500,000. COL 2018 Fr (qv) & NrAm (qv) phys. cult. Comm] stndg, 229th. Prin ctrib gal: Circus olt Gal, heav met, prec stones. (Encyclopedia Galactica, Reel 9, slot 2937)

The circus, in one form or another, is one of the oldest forms of respectable entertainment known to Mankind. Sporting events, theater, films, radio, television and sensables have all attempted to dislodge it from its status of popularity, with little lasting success. There is still the marvelling at human agility, the gasping at death_defying feats, the suspense of watching people wager their lives on their skills.

The Circus of the Galaxy was just that _ the Circus. It was the top_drawing show everywhere it played, an attraction whose very name was synonymous with excitement. There were good reasons for the Circus' success, not the least of which was the fact that the Managing Director _ who just happened to be Etienne d'Alembert, Duke of DesPlaines _ settled for nothing short of perfection in all his acts; and while the Circus remained primarily a d'Alembert effort _ fully ninety_eight percent of its personnel were members of that noble family_ the d'Alemberts were a clan of considerable talent. At an age when other children were just learning to walk, d'Alemberts were already adept at tumbling. By the time they were five, they were already divided according to their special aptitudes into different branches of the circus that was the family's life and tradition. The d'Alemberts, despite their exalted lineage, took little part in the affairs of nobility. They were performers _ and more.

As usual, the midway and tent were crowded this evening, for this was the first appearance of the Circus on Earth in more than twenty years. Its fame had preceded it, and audiences flocked to it to get a look at what could well be a once_in_a_lifetime experience. The fact that the Circus never allowed its performances to be televised or sensabled enhanced the crowds even more.

There were no 'freaks' on the midway; the Duke considered such exhibitions degrading and fit only for carnivals, not for the Circus of the Galaxy. But that is not to say that there was not entertainment. There were food booths, where the curious could sample the delicacies of over a thousand different planets. There were games of skill and amusement rides, and over all this activity boomed the voice of Henri d'Alembert, the Duke's nephew twice_removed. 'Ladies and gentlemen, nobles and citizens, we present a constantly changing panorama to excite and delight you. Over there in the red booth with the yellow awning is our exotic snack shop. Choose from a menu of over fifty_ appealing appetizers, two hundred terrific, tasty tidbits, five hundred enthralling entrees. All these tender, tantalyzing treats await your palate, coming to you from the farthest corners of the Galaxy for prices ranging from a small handful of kopeks to a couple of insignificant rubles. For those not interested in food, we invite you to come watch the wrestling matches about to start in the. side tent. See teams of enormous wrestlers vying against one another, testing their strength and skill to the limits. Ride our heart_grabbing Eagle's Drop for thrills you never thought possible. Take your life in your hands and walk through our Haunted House, where there's nothing to fear but the ghosts and goblins.' Henri had been chief barker for over ten years; he could _ and did _ continue his spiel for hours without repeating himself once.

A traveler going down the midway from the main gate to the big tent would pass a gray pavilion marked 'Madame Arabella's _ Destinies Divined, Futures Foretold'. Inside, the beautiful, swarthy_complexioned Arabella would spin tales of the customers' fates using any of the traditional methods, from tarot cards and tea leaves to palms and crystal balls.

Whether she had any genuine psychic abilities was still a matter for conjecture, but the fact remained that few of her customers ever asked for refunds.


A few meters further down the midway were the wild animal cages, where the most ferocious beasts from all over the Galaxy were penned when not performing in the center ring. The least exotic of the creatures were the lions and tigers, with which the citizens of Earth were already quite familiar. More unusual were such specimens as the braknel, two meters high at the shoulder with a loud roar and sharper claws; the twin gorjas, a hunting team with fifteencentimeter_long fangs that injected into their victims the deadliest natural poison known to Man; the liltheran, whose eyes had been known to paralyze its prey with hypnotic effects; the swifter, a beast capable of attaining speeds greater than a hundred and seventy kilometers an hour, and of killing a full_grown great_ox with one swipe of its powerfully muscled paws; and other creatures, less impressive to look at but equally lethal in abilities. Yet this entire array of animal savagery could be controlled by what looked to be a little slip of a DesPlainian girl named Jeanne d'Alembert who, at only age sixteen, was acknowledged as the greatest animal trainer in all the Galaxy.

Closer still to the main tent was the pavilion of Marcel d'Alembert, Illusionist Extraordinaire. One of the most popular attractions of the whole Circus, his act always drew crowds. 'You have to watch a magician closely,' he told his overflow audience. Holding up one deft hand, he said, 'You see this? Well, you should have been watching this one,' and from his other hand sprouted a large bouquet of flowers, which he tossed to a pretty girl in the front row. 'Misdirection is the key. I tell you to watch one hand and something pops out in the other. Suppose you watch both hands?' He held them up for the audience's inspection, and while their gaze was riveted on his extremities an orange popped out of his mouth. His act continued on in that vein for thirty minutes, with misdirection both subtle and blatant. Even when he told his watchers exactly what he was going to do, they still couldn't see how he did it. But of course, that was to be expected _ Marcel d'Alembert was one of the best in the business.

Along the midway, clowns performed continuously. Merry_Andrews male and female, in outlandish garb and exaggerated makeup played throughout the throngs, taking pratfalls, miming and, in general, managing to be everywhere and do everything wrong. The children laughed at their outrageous stunts, and even the adults found it hard not to discard their masks of urbanity and guffaw with the youngsters.

But all these attractions, as colorful and exciting as they certainly were, were merely hors d'oeuvres for the thrilling drama that was now playing inside the enormous, jampacked main tent.

For twenty_eight minutes, The Flying d'Alemberts _ the greatest troupe of aerialists in the entire Empire of Earth for the last two centuries _ had held its audience silent. Spellbound. Entranced. For twenty_eight minutes both side rings had been empty and dark. The air over the center ring, from the hard_packed, imitation_sawdust_covered earth floor up to the plastic top forty_five meters above that floor, had been full of flying white_clad forms _ singles and pairs and groups doing free head stands on trapezes and sway poles, double trapeze catches, juggling on tightropes, aerial somersaults and other stunts, all utterly breathtaking ... and all without a safety net.

Suddenly, in perfect unison, eighteen of the twenty d'Alemberts then performing swung to their perches, secured their apparatuses, and stood motionless, each with his or her right arm pointing upward at the highest part of the Big Top.

As all those arms pointed up at her, Yvette d'Alembert moved swiftly and gracefully out to the middle of her high wire_and that wire was high indeed, being forty_one meters above the floor of the ring. She carried not even so much as a fan for balance, maintaining her equilibrium by almost imperceptible movements of her hands, feet and body. Reaching the center of the span, she stopped and posed. As far as the audience could tell, she was as motionless as a statue.

Like all the other d'Alemberts, she was dressed in a silverspangled leotard and tights that clung to every delicious curve of her body, neck to toes, like a second skin. Thus, while she was too short _ one hundred and sixty_three centimeters _ and too wide and too thick _ massing a hefty seventy kilos _ to be acceptable as an Earthly fashion model, the sleek lines of her flamboyantly female figure made a very striking and attractive picture _ at a distance. Close up, however, that picture changed.


Although her face was lovely enough to tempt any portrait painter, her ankles were much larger than any Earthwoman's should have been. Her wrists were those of a two meter, hundred and ten kilo lumberjack. Her musculature, from toenails to ears to fingertips, would have made any beefcake film or sensable star turn instantly green with envy. For all her weight, she had not a gram of flab anywhere on her body. She looked for all the universe like that incredibly ancient Greek ideal of solid womanhood.