"Martin H. Greenberg & Mark Tier - Visions of Liberty" - читать интересную книгу автора (Greenberg Martin H)

Then he leaned over his desk to look at Dantler's feet. "At least you've got sturdy shoes. As I told you,
it's a long walk. I've never tackled it myself, no reason to, but those who have say it's a good ten miles,
and half of that is a steep climb up to the pass. It's best to make a two-day trip of it, and you have to
figure on an uncomfortable night. There's no hotel or bed and breakfast place—no houses at all, in fact.
And you'll be lucky if they can provide you with a sleeping bag, but you'd be an idiot to try to find your
way back here in the dark. You got urgent business with the Last Hope?"

"I think it's urgent," Dantler said. "I'm investigating a murder."

The clerk nodded thoughtfully. "I did hear something about that, but it must have been two or three years
ago. You just getting around to investigate now?"

"God's mill grinds slow but sure," Dantler said and left the clerk staring after him perplexedly.
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Dantler found the path without too much difficulty and began to climb. It led steeply upward through a
dense forest of native trees with large, ovate, yellowish leaves and shaggy green bark with strips of red in
it. They seemed to exude fresh-smelling oxygen. Without them, the climb into thinner air would have been
far more difficult.

When he reached the top, he discovered that the steep descent was almost as difficult as the climb. It
was late in the day when he finally reached the Last Hope diggings. There was a scattering of holes with
heaps of dirt around them. He walked on, past several small tents, past a makeshift corral from which the
two mules eyed him suspiciously, past a more ambitious digging that had produced a tunnel burrowed
into the mountain.

Suddenly he received a sharp blow on the head that nearly knocked him senseless. He reacted
instinctively, twisting as he fell, somersaulting into a thick growth of shrubbery, and coming to his feet
ready for action.

There were three bearded, shabby-looking men facing him. All of them were armed with whatever they
had been able to grab when they saw him coming. One brandished the handle of some kind of
hand-operated machine. Another had a piece of firewood. The third had an ax raised high over his head.
They began to edge forward.

Dantler's head ached, and when he brushed his hand across a swelling lump, it came away bloody. He
sensed that the men were about to rush him, so he decided to act before they did and talk afterward. He
drew a small electronic pistol from an inner pocket and sprayed them.

They were halted in their tracks. One at a time they toppled forward and lay twitching on the ground.
Dantler noticed a spring nearby, and he went to it, drank deeply, and washed the blood from his head.
Then he seated himself on a convenient boulder and waited. He felt exhausted, and his head throbbed
fiercely. He wanted to lie down with the three men and twitch for a few minutes, but he couldn't spare
himself that luxury.

As the charge began to wear off, his victims displayed the usual reactions. They rolled over onto their
backs. They flexed arms and legs. They touched their faces and wriggled tingling fingers. None of them