"Jack Vance - The Demon Princes - complete" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

The
Star
Kins

"What a paradox, what a fearful reproach, when the dis-
tinction of a few hundred milesтАФnay, as many feet or even
inches!тАФcan transform heinous crime to simple unqualified
circumstance!"

.. . Hm. Balder Bashin, in the Ecclesiarchic Nuncia-
mento of Year 1000 at Foresse, on the planet Kroki-
nole.

"Law cannot reach where enforcement will not follow."
. . . Popular aphorism.

Excerpts from "Smade of Smade's Planet," feature ar-
ticle in Cosmopolis, October, 1923:

Q: Do you ever get lonesome, Mr. Smade?
A: Not with three wives and eleven children.
Q: Whatever impelled you to settle here? A rather dis-
mal world, on the whole, isn't it?
A: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder- I don't care to

run a vacation resort.

Q: What kind of people patronize the tavern?
A: People who want quiet and a chance to rest. Oc-
casionally a traveler from inside the Pale or an ex-
plorer.

Q: I've heard that some of your clientele is pretty
rough. In factтАФnot to mince wordsтАФit's the gen-
eral belief that Smade's Tavern is frequented by

THE DEMON PRINCES

the most notorious pirates and freebooters of the
Beyond.

A: I suppose they occasionally need rest too.

Q: Don't you have difficulty with these people? Main-
taining order, so to speak?

A: No. They know my rules. I say, "Gentlemen, please
desist. Your differences are your own; they are fu-
gitive. The harmonious atmosphere of the tavern is
mine and I intend it to be permanent."