"Anderson, Poul - 1964 Nicholas Van Rijn 02 - Trader to the Stars 1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anderson Poul)

POUL ANDERSON
TRADER TO THE STARS
1964


HIDING PLACE


Captain Bahadur Torrance received the news as befitted a
Lodgemaster in the Federated Brotherhood of Spacemen.
He heard it out, interrupting only with a few knowledge-
able questions. At the end, he said calmly, "Well done,
Freeman Yamamura. Please keep this to yourself till fur-
ther notice. I'll think about what's to be done. Carry on.
But when the engineer officer had left the cabin-the news
had not been the sort you tell on the intercom-he poured
himself a triple whiskey, sat down, and stared emptily at
the viewscreen.
He had traveled far, seen much, and been well rewarded.
However, promotion being swift in his difficult line of
work, he was still too young not to feel cold at hearing his
death sentence.
The screen showed such a multitude of stars, hard
and winter-brilliant, that only an astronaut could recog-
nize individuals. Torrance sought past the Milky Way un-
til he identified Polaris. Then Valhalla would lie so-and-so
many degrees away, in that direction. Not that he could
see a type-G sun at this distance, without optical instru-
ments more powerful than any aboard the Hebe G.B.
But he found a certain comfort in knowing his eyes were
sighted toward the nearest League base (houses, ships,
humans, nestled in a green valley on Freya) in this al-
most uncharted section of our galactic arm. Especially
when he didn't expect to land there, ever again.
The ship hummed around him, pulsing in and out of
fourspace with a quasi-speed that left light far behind and
yet was still too slow to save him.
Well. . . it became the captain to think first of the
others. Torrance sighed and stood up. He spent a moment
checking his appearance; morale was important, never
more so than now. Rather than the usual gray coverall
of shipboard, he preferred full uniform: blue tunic, white
cape and culottes, gold braid. As a citizen of Ramanujan
planet, he kept a turban on his dark aquiline head,
pinned with the Ship-and-Sunburst of the Polesotechnic
League.
He went down a passageway to the owner's suite. The
steward was just leaving, a tray in his hand. Torrance sig-
naled th.e door to remain open, clicked his heels and
bowed. "I pray pardon for the interruption, sir," he said.