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

** Backwad: Slang of the period: an ill-favored or otherwise repulsive
woman. Etymology uncertain.


"I'm not her mother! We're not related!"
"тАФshe's no better; she walks with her legs bent, as if she's sneaking up
on somebody."
Delmar chuckled; Clachey nodded gravely. "I see. And how do you know
the way she walks? They were sitting down when we brought you in. Your
bad mouth has brought you trouble."
Delmar said, "That's all, ladies. Thank you for your help."
"It's been a pleasure. I hope he gets sent out to Windy River." She
referred to a penal colony on the far planet Resurge.
"It might well be," said Delmar.
The tourists departed. Clachey said to Bo, "Well, then, what about it?
What did you do to Barr?"
"Never heard of him."
"You had your memory blanked," said Delmar. "It won't do you any
good. Windy River, get ready."
"You haven't got a thing on me," said Bo. "Maybe I was drunk and don't
remember too well, but that doesn't mean I scragged Barr."
Clachey and Delmar, who recognized the limitations of their case as well
as Bo, vainly sought more direct evidence. In the end Bo was arraigned on
the charge of memory-blanking without a permit: not a trivial offense
when committed by a person with an active criminal record. The
magistrate fined Bo a thousand dollars and placed him upon stringent
probation. Bo resented both provisions to the depths of his passionate
soul, and he detested the probation officer, Inspector Guy Dalby, on sight.
For his part, Inspector Dalby, an ex-spacefarer, liked nothing about Bo:
neither his dense blond-bronze curls, his sullenly handsome
featuresтАФmarred perhaps by a chin a trifle too heavy and a mouth a trifle
too rich and fullтАФnor his exquisitely modish garments, nor the devious
style of Bo's life. Dalby suspected that for every offense upon Bo's record, a
dozen existed which had never come to official attention. As a spaceman
he took an objective attitude toward wrongdoing, and held Bo to the letter
of his probationary requirements. He subjected Bo's weekly budget to the
most skeptical scrutiny. "What is this figureтАФone hundred
dollarsтАФrepayment of an old debt?"
"Exactly that," said Bo, sitting rigid on the edge of the chair.
"Who paid you this money?"
"A man named Henry Smith: a gambling debt."
"Bring him in here. I'll want to check this."
Bo ran a hand through his cap of golden curls. "I don't know where he
is. I happened to meet him on the street. He paid me my money and went
his way."
"That's your total income of the week?"
"That's it."
Guy Dalby smiled grimly and flicked a sheet of paper with his