"E. C. Tubb - Dumarest 09 - Mayenne" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tubb E. C)

Dumarest looked down at his hand. The knuckles were white from the pressure
with which be gripped the goblet Deliberately he relaxed. Haste now would gain
nothing, and hope was not to be encouraged. Also, Chom could have lied.

Quietly he said, "I understand that you have traveled much and far. May I ask
why?"

"Why I travel?" Daroca shrugged, a gesture of pure elegance when compared to
Chom's heaving shoulders. "As I told you, it amuses me to visit other worlds, to
study other cultures. The galaxy is incredibly vast when considered in terms of
habitable planets, and there are intriguing backwaters, lost worlds, almost, rarely
visited and of an engrossing nature to one like myself who is a student of mankind.
May I return the question? You also travel. Your reason?"

"I have a restless nature," said Dumarest. "And I like variety."

"A kindred spirit," said Daroca. "Shall we drink to our mutual interest?"

He was casual as he lifted his goblet, but his eyes were shrewd. A dilettante,
perhaps, but Dumarest recognized that he was no fool. Only such would have taken
him for a man of cultured leisure, even if Chom had not spoken as he had. Travel
took money and a High passage was not cheap. Those who couldn't afford it rode
Low, sealed in the caskets usually reserved for livestock, doped, frozen, ninety
percent dead, gambling their lives against the fifteen percent death rate for the
privilege of traveling cheap.

To such travel was a mania or a grim necessity.

"He's looking for something," said Chom as Daroca lowered his glass. "A planet
named Earth."

"Earth?"

"That's right." The entrepreneur reached, uninvited, for the wine. "A crazy name
for a world. You might as well call it dirt, or ground, or soil. Earth!" He drank
greedily, and dabbed at his lips. "A dream. How can there be such a place? It
doesn't make sense."

"A mythical planet?" Daroca shrugged. "There are many such. Worlds of
supposed fantastic wealth, once found and then, for some reason, lost or forgotten.
Once I went in quest of such a place. Need I say that it was a futile search?"

"It has another name," said Dumarest softly. "Terra. Perhaps you have heard of
it?"

For a moment time seemed to congeal, to halt as he waited, his outward calm
belying his inner tension. Perhaps, this time, he would receive a positive answer.
Perhaps this wanderer would know the way to the planet he sought. Then, as Daroca
slowly shook his head, the moment passed.