"Alan Dean Foster - The Man Who Used the Universe" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

Within the parallel enclosed tubes that comprised the cities the air
was reasonably fresh. The builders of Evenwaith's great industries had long
ago given up trying to prevent the poisoning of the atmosphere. It was simpler
(and cheaper) to seal each city inside the long glass-and-steel worms the
inhabitants called the tubes so that the factories could belch their sulfur
dioxides and ozones and chemicals into the sky without harming the human
population.
 Unfortunately, the native flora and fauna of Evenwaith had no tubes to
retreat to, no gas masks to don. Outside the tubes the surface was barren
scrub and gravel desert, leaden skies dominating a land of weeds and weak
animals. Even the insects choked.
None of which troubled the busy people of Cluria. Business was good and
there was plenty of work. What did it matter that you couldn't go outside?
There was enough to do inside.
None of the preoccupied pedestrians spared Loo-Macklin a glance. He was
clad in a brown shirt that was puffed at the sleeves and V-necked, loose black
coveralls with straps over his shoulders, and a black cap.
From a distance he was easy to overlook. He was less than average
height. Up close, however, he became suddenly more impressive, particularly if
he turned to face you and you received the full impact of his stare. You would
also note that there was a hundred kilos of muscle on that squat frame, most
of it concentrated in chest and unusually long, massive arms. He wore his
blond hair cut short, for in his profession long hair could prove a fatal
encumbrance. Sleepy blue eyes examined the world from beneath a high forehead
and there was about him an air of lounging insouciance.
It was only an air, however. Loo-Macklin absorbed everything that went
on around him. He just didn't want the world to know it was being absorbed.
He had a very small mouth, a nose that had been broken many times, and
those exceedingly odd blue eyes that never seemed to open more than halfway.
They were certainly a striking color, almost a turquoise, and all the more
remarkable for the fact that there seemed to be nothing behind them.
A well-dressed man and woman, hand in hand, came strolling down his
side of the street. They passed him as though he weren't there. It was a
talent he'd refined, the ability to become part of the scenery.
He followed them as they passed, looked the other way up the street,
then put his hands in his pockets and walked casually across the pavement. He
was twenty-two years old and had been a registered illegal for five years.
There were a hundred classes of citizenship, both legal and illegal. Of
course, you could hold both, depending on your profession and avocations. Loo-
Macklin was an eighty-third-class illegal and had spent two years in that
status. He was tired of it. Any twenty-two-year-old would have been. But Loo-
Macklin was very patient, which the average citizen his age was not. Patience
was a prerequisite in his chosen line of work.
He'd started making a name for himself in Volea, a small
semiagricultural city to the south of Cluria. A recommendation by the gang
leader he'd worked for there brought him to the attention of powerful
underworld figures in the metropolis. For two years he'd worked for one of the
city's dozen criminal syndicates.
He'd learned the methodology of operating a large illegal concern.
Learned it well, despite warnings from associates not to study beyond