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

had come through his ordeal unscathed. One, a man with a long gray beard and a fierce-looking
mustache, had a bloody nose from his fall. Another, with a blond beard, had smacked his forehead on a
stone. It was already a black and blue swollen lump. The third, with a neatly trimmed black beard and
newish-looking clothing, was going to have a splendid black eye.

Finally the man with the mustache, sat up. He stared at Dantler.

"Bashing a visiting stranger over the head is a perverted kind of hospitality," Dantler observed pleasantly.
"Or were you expecting someone else?"

The other two men struggled to sitting positions. "What'd you do to us?" the man with a blond beard
asked.

"Something a trifle more civilized than the bashing you had in mind," Dantler said. "I trust that one dose
will be sufficient."

"Hell, yes," the man with the mustache said. "Who are you?"

"As I said, a visiting stranger. I walked ten miles over the mountain to ask the favor of some information.
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I wasn't expecting this kind of welcome. I have credentials issued by this world's factor. Perhaps you
would like to examine them." He held one of them under the man's nose. "As you see, a word from me,
and the Last Hope mine will have exhausted its last hope. All of its employees will leave Llayless on the
next ship. I was hoping I wouldn't have to use it. Are you ready to talk?"

"No reason not to. We thought you were a whacker."

"What's a whacker that makes him deserve that kind of reception?"

"Whackers kill miners and take over their claims."

"Really. Are there whackers on Llayless?"

"Don't know of any, but we've encountered them elsewhere. Better to act first and then ask questions."

"Only yesterday I talked with Jeffrey Wallingford Pummery, who is the esteemed—I hope—factor of
the world of Llayless and he told me Llayless was the most law-abiding world in the galaxy."

The man laughed derisively. "That's a good one. Llayless has got no government. It's got no laws—just a
few regulations about mining. If it had laws, there would be no one to enforce them. It's got no law
officers. It's got no judges and courts. On my mining claim, I'm the law—that's what my contract says.
The only law on Llayless is what the person who controls a bit of ground can enforce at the end of a
stick."

The man with the black beard had recovered enough to get to his feet and hobble around. "Never
expected to get stunned out here in the mountains," he said resentfully. "What's this information you