"Wolfe, Gene - The Urth Of The New Sun" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

contracted again to a length less than the first, and with
great force. Struggling to free myself, I found myself more
tightly bound than ever, a circumstance that Gunnie and
Purn found highly amusing.
Sidero crisscrossed the shaggy creature with fresh cords,
then told Gunnie to release me, which she did by cutting
me free with her dagger.
"Thank you," I said.
"It happens all the time," she said. "I got stuck onto a
basket like that once. Don't worry about it."
Led by Sidero, Purn and Idas were already carrying the
creature away. I stood up. "I'm afraid I'm no longer
accustomed to being laughed at."
"One time you were? You don't look it."
"As an apprentice. Everyone laughed at the younger
apprentices, especially the older ones."
Gunnie shrugged. "Half the things a person does are
funny, if you come to think of it. Like sleeping with your
mouth open. If you're quartermaster, nobody laughs. But
if you're not, your best friend will slip a dust ball into it.
Don't try to pull those off."
The black cords had clung to the nap of my velvet shirt,
and I had been plucking at them. "I should carry a knife,"
I said.
"You mean you don't?" She looked at me commiseratingly,
her eyes as large, as dark, and as soft as any cow's.
"But everybody ought to have a knife."
"I used to wear a sword," I said. "After a while I gave it
up, except for ceremonies. When I left my cabin, I thought
my pistol would be more than adequate."
"For fighting. But how much do you have to do, a man
who looks like you do?" She took a backward step and
pretended to evaluate my appearance. "I don't think many
people would give you trouble."
The truth was that in her thick-soled sea boots she stood
as tall as I did. In any place where men and women bore
weight, she would have been as heavy too; there was real
muscle on her bones, with a good deal of fat over it.
I laughed and admitted that a knife would have been
useful when Sidero threw me off the platform.
"Oh, no," she told me. "A knife wouldn't have scratched
him." She grinned. "That's what the whoremaster said
when the sailor came." I laughed, and she linked her arm
through mine. "Anyway, a knife's not mainly for fighting.
It's for working, one way or another. How're you going to
splice rope without a knife, or open ration boxes? You keep
your eyes open as we go along. No telling what you'll find
in one of these cargo bays."
"We're going in the wrong direction," I said.
"I know another way, and if we went out the way we