"Jack Vance - Assault on a City" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

"Probably hasn't."
Hernanda looked at him suspiciously, sidelong. "Are you interested?"
"Not all so much. She looks happy. I wonder why. It's probably her first
time to Hant; soon she'll be heading back into nowhere. What has she got
to live for?"
"She's probably rolling in money. I could have it too if I were willing to
put up with her kind of life."
Bo chuckled. "It's remarkable, for a fact. Well, she's harmless, or so I
suppose."
"Certainly nothing much to look at. All young eagerness and dancing
around the maypole. Hair like a straw pile . . .Bo!"
"What?"
"You're not listening to me."
"My mind is roving the star lanes."
Waldo and Alice rose from their table and left the cafe. Bo's lewd
conjectures caused him to suck in his breath. "Come along."
Hernanda sulkily swung her head away, and remained in her seat. Bo
paid her no heed. Speechless with indignation, she watched him go.
Waldo and Alice halted to avoid a jeek. Bo reached from the side and
gave the jeek's tail horn a hard slap. The jeek voided upon Waldo. Alice
glanced at Bo in consternation, then turned to Waldo. "It's that man there
who did it!"
 "Where? Which man?" croaked Waldo.
Suddenly alive to the danger of apprehension and police charges, Bo slid
away through the crowd. Reeking and smarting, Waldo pursued him. Bo
ran across the Parade, off into one of the rancid little alleys of the Alien
Quarter. Wild with rage, Waldo followed.
Bo ran across the plaza where a dozen or more jeeks stood at a
chest-high bench ingesting salt-froth. Waldo halted, looking here and
there; Bo darted forth and thrust him into the group of jeeks; Waldo's
impetus overturned the bench. Bo ran fleetly away, while the jeeks
trampled Waldo, struck him with their secondary stubs, squirted him
with tar.
Alice appeared with a pair of patrolmen, who flashed red lights at the
jeeks and froze them into rigidity.
Waldo crept across the plaza on his hands and knees, and vomited the
contents of his stomach.
"Poor Waldo," said Alice.
"Leave him to us, miss," said the corporal. "Just a question or two, then
I'll call down a cab. Who is this gentleman?"
Alice recited Waldo's name and address.
"And how did he get in this mess?"
Alice explained as best she could.
"Was this man in the green pants known to either of you?"
"I'm sure not. The whole affair seems so strange."
"Thank you, miss. Come along, I'll call the cab."
"What of poor Waldo?"
"He'll be all right. We'll take him to the dispensary to be cleaned up.
Tomorrow he'll be as good as new."
Alice hesitated. "I don't like to leave him, but I'd better be getting