"E. C. Tubb - Dumarest 06 - Lallia" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tubb E. C)

LALLIA
#6 in the Dumarest series

E.C. Tubb


Copyright ┬й, 1971, by E. C. Tubb

All Rights Reserved.




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Cover and interior art by George Barr.




To Stewart Sidney Elcomb



Chapter One


On aarn a man was murdered and Dumarest watched him die.

It was a thing quickly done in a place close to the landing field: a
bright tavern of gleaming comfort just beyond the main gate of the high
perimeter fence, a cultured place of softness and gentle lighting snugly
set on a cultured world. The raw violence was all the more unexpected
because of that.

Dumarest saw it all as he stood with his back to a living mural in
which naked women swam in an emerald sea and sported with slimed
beasts of obscene proportions. Before him, scattered over soft carpets,
the customers of the tavern lounged in chairs or stood at the long bar of
luminescent wood. An assorted crowd of crewmen and officers, field
personnel, traders, and transients. Bright among them was the gaudy
finery of pleasure girls, flaunting their charms. Soft music saturated
from the carved ceiling and perfumed smoke stained the air.