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

for all that."

Another Xar spoke. "Two further questions: How much can they pay? Where do they wish to go?"

Reith, considering the uncomfortably scant supply of sequins in his pouch, said, "A hundred
sequins is all we can offer; and we want to be taken to Tusa Tala."

The Xars threw up their hands in outrage. "Tusa Tala? A thousand miles northwest! We head
southeast to Lake Falas! A hundred sequins? Is this a joke? Mountebanks! Off with all of you,тАЮ

Zarfo swaggered threateningly forward. "A mountebank, you call me? Were it not Balul Zac Ag,
the 'unnatural dream time,' I would tweak all of your ludicrously long noses!"

The Xars made spitting sounds between their teeth, climbed aboard the raft and departed.

Zarfo stared after the departing raft. He heaved a sigh. "In this case, failure ... Well, all
may not prove so churlish. In the sky comes another craft; we shall put the proposal to those
aboard, or at an extremity, render them drunk and borrow the vehicle. A handsome craft, that.
Surely-"

Anacho gave a startled outcry. "A Dirdir sky-car! Already they are here! Away to concealment,
for our very lives!"

He started to dart away. Reith seized his arm. "Don't run; do you want them to identify us so
quickly?" To Zarfo: "Where shall we hide?"

"In the ale-house storeroom but never forget that this is Balul Zac Ag! The Dirdir would never
dare violence!"

"Bah," sneered Anacho. "What do they know of your customs, or care?"

"I will explain to them," declared Zarfo. He led the three to a shed beside the alehouse,
ushered them within. Through a crack in the plank Reith watched the Dirdir sky-car settle into the
compound. On sudden thought he turned to Traz, felt over his garments, and in vast dismay
discovered a black disc.

"Quick," said Anacho. "Give it here." He left the shed, went into the ale-house. A minute later
he returned. "An old Lokhar departing for his cottage now carries the tell-tale." He went to a
crack, peered out toward the field. "Dirdir, sure enough! As always when sport is to be had!"

The sky-car lay quiet: a craft different from any Reith had seen heretofore, the product of a
sure and sophisticated technology. Five Dirdir stepped to the ground: impressive creatures, harsh,
mercurial, decisive. They stood approximately at human height, and moved with sinister quickness,


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like lizards on a hot day. Their dermal surfaces suggested polished bone; their crania raised into
sharp blade-like crests, with incandescent antennae streaming back at either side. The contours of