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

hanging in the sky thick as jellyfish. Every cheap-jack and politician and
plutocrat around the world would want his aerie. No, miss, they're
reserved for the O.T.E. and that's how it should be. Are you to be here
long?"
"Not too long; my father has business with the Agency, and I'll
undertake a bit of research while I'm here."
"Ah, you'll be a student at the Academy? It's an interesting place, the
last word on everything, or so they say."
"I'm sure it is. I plan to visit the Hall of History tomorrow, as a matter
of fact." She pointed toward a descending cab. "Here they are at last."
Bo, who had worked to within casual earshot, wielded his machine until
Sarkane went off to confer with the Tynnotts. He buffed along the flange to
where the girl stood leaning on the rail; raising his eyes he glimpsed a pair
of smooth slender brown legs, a glint of thigh. She was only peripherally
aware of his existence. Bo straightened up and put on that expression of
mesmeric masculinity which had served him so well in the past. But the
girl, rather than heeding him, went down the deck a few steps. "I'm
already here," she called, "but I don't know how to get in."
Bo quivered with wrath. So the girl wouldn't look at him! So she
thought him a stupid laborer! Couldn't she tell he was Bo Histledine, the
notorious Big Boo, known up and down the North Shore, from Dipshaw
Heights to Swarling Park?
He moved along the rail. Halting beside the girl he contrived to drop his
adjustment wrench on her foot. She yelped in pain and surprise. "Sorry,"
said Bo. He could not restrain a grin. "Did it hurt?"
"Not very much." She looked down at the black smear of grease on her
white sandal, then she turned and joined her parents, who were entering
the aerie. She said in a puzzled voice, "Do you know, I believe that
workman purposely dropped his tool on my foot."
Tynnott said after a moment, "He probably wanted to attract your
attention."
"I wish he'd thought of some other way ... It still hurts."



Two hours later, with the sun low in the west, Tynnott took the aerie
aloft. The spaceyards dwindled below; the black buildings, the skeletal
spaceships, the ramps, docks and gantries, became miniatures. The
Louthe lay across the panorama in lank mustard-silver sweeps, with a
hundred bridges straddling. Dipshaw Heights rose to the west with white
structures stepping up and down the slope; beyond and away to the north
spread residential suburbs among a scatter of parks and greenways. In the
east stood the decaying towers of the Old City; in the south, golden among
a tumble of cumulus clouds, Cloudhaven floated like a wonderful fairy
castle.
The aerie drifted full in the light of sunset. The Tynnotts, Merwyn, Jade
and Alice, leaned on the railing looking down upon the city.
"Now you've seen old Hant," said Merwyn Tynnott, "or at least the scope
of it. What do you think?"
"It's a wild confusion," said Alice. "At least it seems that way. So many