"Gardner F. Fox - The Arsenal of Miracles" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fox Gardner F)

where Makkamar City begins and fingered his belt pouch for the dice he
carried always with him. They were strange dice, carved with cats and
ships and dragons on solid onyx of a peculiar red color; he had found them
in his wanderings; he rarely took a step without rubbing them with the
thumb of his right hand and tossing them high.

He did that now, catching them with a sidewise swipe of the hand and
opening his fingers to grin down at the twin ships that ran before an onyx
wind.

"A lucky symbol, the Kriil ships," he chuckled. There was a gold coin
and three silvery speds in his pocket pouch beside the dice, enough for a
feed and a comfortable bed for one night. Bran the Wanderer was wealthy
only in his freedom of movement. He had no other riches.

He could eat and sleep with that money. Or—build himself a stake in
some space-stews dive. His belly was empty but he had been a gambler too
long not to feel a tug from the felt covers he would find on a tavern
gambling table. He needed money, right now. Why, Bran? To go on
roaming to forget Peganna?

Some men found Lethe in the bottoms of their liquor mugs; others, in
the women who flocked to the stews. Bran found his in far travels. The
sandy world of Conchavar. The great green seas that roll eternally on
Slithstan The high rock mountains of Klard. He had touched them all.

And yet, he wanted more. To see the marsh fires dance their blazing
saraband on Duheel. To stare when the copper skies come down on
Boharel and kiss the metal trees that are unlike any other trees in the
known universe. To walk in the caves of Rann. To climb the Tors on
Vomarr. A corner of his mind told him he was a fool, that other men had
built new lives from the wreckage of the old. His lips twisted, bitterly.
None of them had ever known Peganna of the Silver Hair or held her in his
arms under the seven moons of Kuleen while wearing the white uniform of
Interstellar Fleet Commander.

He snarled low in his throat.

"Sure, it's all behind me now. I'm no longer a commander with all his
pretty gold braid and precious medals—but a nobody."

A dog ran out of the shadows formed by two buildings where they
leaned toward the setting sun as if for a last bit of warmth against the
coming cold of night, and barked at him. It was a scrawny yellow hound, a
breed called lannx by the men of Makkador, and it looked half starved. As
I do myself, Bran thought.

He moved on away from the dog, along a narrow alleyway that twisted
halfway across the edge of Makkamar City to its spaceport and the stews
that formed a stinking crescent around its launching pads. There would be