"E. C. Tubb - Dumarest 07 - Technos" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tubb E. C)

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Technos
#7 in the Dumarest series

E.C. Tubb



Chapter One


AT NIGHT the streets of Clovis were twisting threads of
shadowed mystery faced by high walls and shuttered windows,
looping and curving as they followed the dictates of some ancient
plan. The city itself was a place of brooding silence broken only
by the sough of the wind from the plains beyond, the discordant
chiming of prayer bells suspended from the peaked and gabled
roofs. Pale lanterns hung like ghostly stars, their ineffectual light
augmented by the haze from the landing field and the great
floodlights of the workings to the north where men and machines
tore into the planetary crust for the wealth buried deep; all was
reflected from the lowering clouds in a dim and artificial
moonlight.

Dumarest paused as he reached an intersection, eyes watchful
as he studied the streets curving to either side. They appeared
deserted but that meant little; men could be lurking in the black
mouths of doorways, the shadowed alleys, ready to leap out and
kill any who passed. He would not be the first to be found robbed
and murdered in the light of the rising sun.
 Cautiously, keeping to the middle of the road, he headed down
one of the streets, his boots making soft padding noises as he
trod the cobbled way. It was late; an entrepreneur had brought
in a troupe of dancing girls, little things of graceful movement,
doll-like in ornate costumes, their hands fluttering in symbolic
gestures as they pirouetted to the beat of gong and drum, and
entranced by their charming innocence he had lingered to see
the final performance. Now he was beginning to regret his
self-indulgence. Clovis was an old city steeped in ancient
tradition, resentful of the new activity which threatened its
brooding introspection.

And, in the winding maze of streets, it was all too easy to get