"E. C. Tubb - Dumarest 01 - The Winds of Gath" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tubb E. C)

"I haven't lost a one yet," boasted the handler. "That's why you
had me worried. I've got a clean score and I want it to stay that
way."

It wouldn't, of course. Benson was still fresh at the game. Give
him time and he would become less conscientious, more time
and he would grow careless, finally he wouldn't give a damn.
That's when some of his kind thought it cute to cut the dope and
watch some poor devil scream his lungs raw with the agony of
restored circulation.

"I'm forgetting," he said. He passed over a cup of brackish
water. Dumarest drank it, handed back the cup.

"Thanks." His voice was thin, a little rusty. He swallowed and
tried again. This time he sounded more like his normal self.
"How about some basic?"

"Coming right up."

Dumarest sat hunched in the box as Benson crossed to the
dispenser. He wrapped his arms about his chest, conscious of the
cold, the bleakness of the compartment The place resembled a
morgue. A chill, blue-lighted cavern, the air tainted with a
chemical smell. A low place, shapeless with jutting struts and
curved beams, harsh with the unrelieved monotony of unpainted
metal.
 There was no need for heat in this part of the ship and no
intention of providing comfort. Just the bare metal, the
ultraviolet lamps washing the naked, coffin-like boxes with their
sterilizing glow. Here was where the livestock rode, doped,
frozen, ninety per cent dead. Here was the steerage for travelers
willing to gamble against the fifteen per cent mortality rate.

Such travel was cheapтАФits sole virtue.

But something was wrong.

Dumarest sensed it with the caution born of long years of
experience. It wasn't the waking. He had gained awareness long
before the end of the five-minute waking cycle. It wasn't Benson.
It was something elseтАФsomething which should not be.

He found it after he had moistened the tips of his fingers and
rested them lightly against the bare metal of the structure. They
tingled with the faint but unmistakable effect of the Erhaft field.
The ship was still in space.

And travelers were never revived until after landing.
***