"Jack Vance - Tschai 3 - The DirDir" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

Anacho paid him no heed. "All this to the side; we have no certain evidence of surveillance.
Adam Reith may well be mistaken."

"Adam Reith is not mistaken," said Traz. "'Even Traz,' as you put it, knows better than this."

Anacho raised his hairless eyebrows. "How so?"

"Notice the man who just entered the room."

"A Lokhar; what about him?"

"He is no Lokhar. He watches our every move."

Anacho's jaw fell a trifle slack.

Reith studied the man surreptitiously; he seemed less burly, less direct and abrupt than the
typical Lokhar. Anacho spoke in a subdued voice: "The lad is right. Notice how he drinks his ale,
head down instead of back ... Disturbing."

Reith muttered, "Who would be interested in us?"

Anacho gave a bark of caustic laughter. "Do you think that our exploits have gone unnoticed?
The events at Ao Hidis have aroused attention everywhere."

"So this man-whom would he serve?"

Anacho shrugged. "With his skin dyed black I can't even guess his breed."

"We'd better get some information," said Reith. He considered a moment. "I'll walk out through
the bazaar, then around into the Old Town. If the man yonder follows, give him a start and come
behind. If he stays, one of you stay, the other come after me."

Reith went out into the bazaar. At a Zhurveg pavilion he paused to examine a display of rugs,
woven, according to rumor, by legless children, kidnapped and maimed by the Zhurvegs themselves.


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He glanced back the way he had come. No one appeared to be following. He went on a little way, and
paused by the racks where hideous Niss women sold coils of braided leather rope, leap-horse
harness, crudely beautiful silver goblets. Still no one behind. He crossed the passage to examine
a Dugbo display of musical instruments. If he could take a cargo of Zhurveg rugs, Niss silver,
Dugbo musical instruments back to Earth, thought Reith, his fortune would be made. He looked over
his shoulder, and now he observed Anacho dawdling fifty yards behind. Anacho clearly had learned
nothing.

Reith sauntered on. He paused to watch a Dugbo necromancer: a twisted old man squatting behind
trays of misshapen bottles, jugs of salve, junction-stones to facilitate telepathy, love-sticks,