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

what Bo considered an unnecessarily brusque gesture.
Bo slung the machine over his shoulder and followed Sarkane, walking
perforce with the bent loose-kneed stride of a workman carrying a load.
He knew the look of his gait; introversion and constant self-evaluation are
integral adjuncts to the urbanites' mental machinery; he felt humiliation
and fury: he, Bo Histledine, Big Bo the Boodlesnatch, hunching along like
a common workman! He longed to shout at Sarkane, something like:
"Hey! Slow down, you old gutreek; do you think I'm a camel? Here, carry
the damn machine yourself, or put it in your ear!" Bo only muttered the
remarks, and loped to catch up with Sarkane: through the clangor of the
cold-belling shop, across the pulsion-pod storage yard with the great hulls
massive overhead; over the gantry ways to a cluster of three platforms at
the southern edge of the yard. On one of the platforms rested a
glass-domed construction which Bo recognized for an aerie: the honorary
residence of a commander in the Order of the Terrestrial Empire, and
reserved for the use of such folk alone.
Sarkane motioned to Bo, and indicated the underside of the peripheral
flange. "Polish that metal clean, get all that scurf and oxide off, so the
crystallizer can lay on a clean coat. They'll be arriving at any time and we
want it right for them."
"Who is 'them'?"
"A party from Rampold: an O.T.E. and his family. Get cracking now, we
don't have much time."
Sarkane moved away. Bo considered the aerie. Rampold? Bo thought he
had heard the place mentioned: a far half-savage world where men strove
against an elemental environment and hostile indigenes to create new
zones of habitability. Why didn't they stay out there if they liked it so
much? But they always came swanking back to Earth with their titles and
prerogatives, and here he was, Bo Histledine, polishing metal for them.
Bo jumped up to the deck and went to peer into the interior. He saw a
pleasant but hardly lavish living room with white walls, a scarlet and blue
rug, an open fireplace. In the center of the room a number of cases had
been stacked. Bo read the name stenciled on the sides: Commander M. R.
Tynnott, S.E.S.тАФthe S.E.S. for Space Exploration Service.
Sarkane's voice vibrated against his back. "Hey! Histledine! Get down
from there! What do you think you're up to?"
"Just looking," said Bo. "Keep your shirt on." He jumped to the ground.
"Nothing much to see, anyway. They don't even have a TV, let alone a
term. Still, I'd take one if they gave it to me."
"There's no obstacle in your way." Sarkane's tone was edged with
caustic humor. "Just go work out back of beyond for twenty or thirty
years; they'll give you an aerie."
"Bo Histledine isn't about to start out there."
"I expect not. Buff down that flange now, and make a clean job of it."
While Bo applied his machine, Sarkane wandered here and there,
inspecting the repairs which had been made on the aerie's under-body,
waiting for the crystallizer crew, and keeping an eye on Bo.
The work was tiresome; Bo was forced to stand in a cramped position,
holding the machine above him. His zeal, never too keen, began to flag.
Whenever Sarkane was out of sight, Bo straightened up and relaxed.