"Alexander Kazantsev. The Destruction of Faena (ГИБЕЛЬ ФАЭНЫ, англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

life for the welfare of the Faetians, thinking of their distant future and
also of universal progress and of peace between the continents.
The obsequious joy in the Dictator's palace impeded Grom Alt's
investigation. Everyone he met could talk about nothing except the exploit
of Yar Jupi and his daughter.
In such an atmosphere, it was positively dangerous to draw anyone's
attention to a bloodstain that could cast a shadow on Mada, who had been
pronounced heroine of the day. Grom Alt found it particularly suspicious
that Mada had not left the Blood Door to her chambers open and that her
nanny had still failed to show up.
He decided to consult his brother, even if it meant sharing the honour
of the possible discovery with him. But Yar Alt had disappeared.
It could be that Yar Jupi had sent his trusted Supreme Officer on some
mission, as often before.
Grom Alt decided to act at his own risk. While Mada, amid sobs and
compliments, was being seen to the cosmodrome, Grom Alt, who had remained
behind on duty, went to the girl's chambers. The Blood Door was locked, but
not by automatic machines this time. All he needed was the skeleton key
which he had been taught to use in the Blood Guard school. Grom Alt went
cautiously into the pale-blue room.
He not only found the body of Mada's nanny lying on the couch, but that
of his own brother.
A poisoned bullet!
Yar Alt's pistol was lying nearby. Such a weapon could only have been
carried by the Supreme Officer of the Blood Guard.
Grom Alt examined the weapon. There were no bullets left in it. His
brother was not the kind of Faetian to have had only one round left in the
magazine and to have used it on himself. On whom had the others been used?
With mixed feelings of regret and disgust, Grom Alt looked at his
brother's cold body. They had never been good friends in his lifetime. Yar
Alt had forever oppressed his younger brother. And now there he was, lying
dead at Grom Alt's feet, thereby giving him a foothold on the next rung of
the career ladder.
Grom Alt was so pleased with his comparison of the corpse to a rung on
the ladder that he could not withhold himself and set his foot on the body,
but promptly jerked it away again and hurried out of the nauseating room
into the garden, then straight to the Dictator.
It was not easy getting through to Yar Jupi, in spite of the shocking
news that Grom Alt was bringing him.
The impartial secretary box would understand nothing. Feelings did not
exist for it, and the security robots and the door automatic machines of the
Dictator's study were controlled solely by that brainless box.
To tell the truth to the box would mean a refusal for sure, because the
stupid machine would promptly record in its memory all the circumstances of
the affair and send it for investigation to the officers of Criminal
Investigation, who hated the officers of the Blood Guard. They would risk
reporting the incident to the Dictator only after the findings of the
Criminal Investigation officers who, of course, would squeeze Grom Alt out
of the picture.
That was why Grom Alt decided to lie to the secretary box, inventing a