"E. C. Tubb - Dumarest 12 - Eloise" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tubb E. C)

An exercise which had been conducted before, but which, as
yet, had always failed.

Nequal sharpened the edge of his mind. From the agricultural
worlds a trader would, most logically, move on to Ookan, to
Narag or Guir, and then?
 A moment as factors were weighed and evaluated. "Tynar," he
decided. "We shall find him there."


Chapter Two


It was a harsh world with a ruby sun casting a sombre light,
the air heavy with the stench of sulphur, ammonia, methane; the
natural exudations augmented by the fumes from the smelters,
the acrid gases rising in plumes from the pits and craters of the
mines. An old world, dying, ravaged by exploiters eager for its
mineral wealth.

The city hugged the field, a rambling place of raw buildings
and great warehouses against which the shacks of transients
clung like fetid barnacles. A nest of lanes gave on to wider
thoroughfares, streets flanked with shops, inns, places of
entertainment. Narrow alleys led to secluded courts faced with
shuttered mansions.

A normal city for such a world, the early residents withdrawn;
hating the brash newness, the greed which had shattered their
peace. From barred windows they watched as the great trucks
headed towards the field loaded with precious metals; the
workers thronging the city eager to spend their pay. Noisy men
who had brought with them their own, familiar parasites;
gamblers, harlots, the peddlers of dreams, the fighters and
toadies, the scum of a hundred worlds.

Seated in a corner of a tavern close to the field, Dumarest
sipped slowly at his wine.

He was a tall man with wide shoulders and a narrow waist,
dressed all in neutral grey, the collar and cuffs of his tunic tight
against throat and wrists. He wore pants of the same, plastic
material; the legs thrust into knee-boots, the hilt of a knife riding
above the right. Common wear for a traveler, the metal mesh
buried beneath the plastic an elementary precaution.

As was the place he had chosen, the wall which rose at his
back.

A woman hesitated before him; aged, dressed in bedraggled