"Jack Vance - Alastor 2262 - Trullion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

sufficiency earned him the soubriquet "Lord Glay"; perhaps coincidentally, Glay was the only
member of the household who wanted to move into the manor house on Ambal Isle. Even Marucha had
put the idea away as a foolish if amusing daydream.

Glay's single confidant was Akadie the mentor, who lived in a remarkable house on Sarpassante
Island, a few miles north of Rabendary. Akadie, a thin long-armed man with an ill-assorted set of
features-a big nose, sparse curls of snuff-brown hair, glassy blue eyes, a mouth continually
trembling at the verge of a smile-was, like Glay, something of a misfit. Unlike Glay, he had
turned idiosyncrasy to advantage, and drew custom even from the aristocracy.

Akadie's profession included the offices of epigrammatist, poet, calligrapher, sage, arbiter of
elegance, professional guest (hiring Akadie to grace a party was an act of conspicuous
consumption), marriage broker, legal consultant, repository of local tradition, and source of
scandalous gossip. Akadie's droll face, gentle voice, and subtle language rendered his gossip all
the more mordant. Jut distrusted Akadie and had nothing to do with him, to the regret of Marucha,
who had never relinquished her social ambitions, and who felt in her heart of hearts that she had


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married below herself. Hussade sheirls often married lords!

Akadie had traveled to other worlds. At night, during star-watchings,* he would mark the stars
he had visited; then he would describe their splendor and the astounding habits of their peoples.
Jut Hulden cared nothing for travel; his interest in the other worlds lay in the quality of their
hussade teams and the location of the Cluster Champions.
When Glinnes was sixteen he saw a starmenter ship. It dropped from the sky above Ambal Broad and
slid at reckless speed down toward Welgen. The radio provided a minute-by-minute report of the
raid. The starmenters landed
* star-watching: at night the stars of Alastor Cluster blaze in profusion. The atmosphere refracts
their light; the sky quivers with beams, glitters, and errant flashes. The Trills go out into
their gardens with jugs of wine; they name the stars and discuss localities. For the Trills, for
almost anyone of Alastor, the night sky was so abstract empyrean but rather, a view across
prodigious distances to known places-a vast luminous map. There was always talk of pirates-the so-
called "starmenters"-and their grisly deeds. When Numenes Star shone in the sky, the conversation
turned to the Connatic and glorious Lusz, and someone would always say, "Best to steady our
tongues! Perhaps he sits here now, drinking our wine and marking the dissidents! "-creating a
nervous titter, for the Connatic's habit of wandering quietly about the worlds was well known.
Then someone always uttered the brave remark: "Here we are-ten (or twelve or sixteen or twenty, as
the case might be) among five trillion! The Connatic among us? Ill take that chance!"
At such a star-watch, Shame Hulden had wandered off into the darkness. Before her absence was
noticed the merlings had seized her and had taken her away underwater.

in the central square, and seething forth plundered the banks, the jewel factors, and the cauch
warehouse, cauch being by far the most valuable commodity produced on Trullion. They also seized a
number of important personages to be held for ransom. The raid was swift and well-executed; in ten
minutes the starmenters had loaded their ship with loot and prisoners. Unluckily for them, a Whelm
cruiser chanced to be putting into Port Maheul when the alarm was broadcast and merely altered
course to arrive at Welgen instead. Glinnes ran out on the verandah to see the Whelm ship arrive-a