"E. C. Tubb - Dumarest 10 - Jondelle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tubb E. C)

Scanned by Highroller

Proofed by the best ELF proofer.

Made prettier by use of EBook Design Group Stylesheet.




Jondelle
#10 in the Dumarest series

E.C. Tubb



CHAPTER ONE


Akon Batik was an old man with a seamed face and slanting
eyes flecked with motes of amber. His lobeless ears were set close
to his rounded skull and his thin mouth curved downward as if
he had tasted the universe and found it not to his liking. He wore
an embroidered robe of black and yellow, the wide sleeves falling
low over his hands. A round cap of matching color was adorned
by a single jewel which caught the light and reflected it in
splinters of lambent ruby. Casually he stirred the heap of crystals
lying before him on the solid desk of inlaid woods. His finger was
thin, hooked, the nail long and sharply pointed. At its touch the
crystals made a dry rustling as they shifted over the sheet of
paper on which they lay.

"From Estale?"

"Yes," said Dumarest. "From Estale."

"A hard world," mused the jeweler. "A bleak place with little
to commend it aside from the workings which produce its
wealth. A single vein of lerad in which are to be found the
chorismite crystals." He touched them again, watching as they
turned, his eyes remote. "I understood the company mining
them was jealous of its monopoly."

"It is."

"And yet you have a score of them."

It was more of a question than a statement but one which
Dumarest had no intention of answering. He leaned back in his
chair looking again at the paneled walls, the painted ceiling, the