"Edmond Hamilton - The Valley of Creation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Edmond)

Eric Nelson puzzledly examined the thing. It was a thick hoop of dull gray metal, a ring several inches in
diameter. Mounted on opposite sides of the metal hoop were two small disks of quartz. There was something
odd about the little quartz disks. Each was only an inch across, but each had a carven pattern of interlocking
spirals that baffled and blurred the vision.

Lefty Wister whined scornfully, “The bleody beggar wants to hire us with a hoop of old iron!”

“Iron? No,” grunted Van Voss. “I see that metal down in the Sumatra mines. It is platinum.”

“Platinum? Let me see that!” exclaimed Sloan. He closely examined the gray metal hoop. “By heaven, it is!”

His tawny eyes narrowed as he looked up at the silent, watching stranger? “Where did this come from?”

“From L'Lan,” answered Shan Kar. “There is more there—much more. All you can take away will be yours as
pay.”

Nick Sloan swung around on Nelson. “Nelson, this could be big. All the years you and I have been out here,
we haven't had an opportunity like this.”

The Cockney's eyes were already shining covetously. Van Voss merely stared sleepily at the metal hoop.

Eric Nelson fingered it again and asked, “Where exactly did it come from? It looks almost like a queer
instrument of some kind rather than an ornament.”

Shan Kar answered evasively, “It came from a cavern in L'Lan. And there is much more metal like it there.”

Li Kin said slowly, “A cavern in L'Lan? That name sounds familiar, somehow. I think there was a legend
once—”

Shan Kar interrupted. “Your answer, white men—will you come?”


The Valley Of Creation 5
 The Valley Of Creation

Nelson hesitated. There was too much about this business that was unexplained. Yet they dared not stay here
in Yen Shi.

He finally told Shan Kar, “I'll commit myself to no bargains in the dark. But I'm willing to go to your valley.
If the setup is as you say, we'll fight your battle—for platinum.”

Sloan planned swiftly. “We can get a few light machine−guns and what tommy−guns and grenades we need
from old Yu's arsenal. But it'll take work to round up enough pack−ponies by tomorrow morning.”

His face crisped in resolve. “We can do it, though. We'll be ready to start at dawn, Shan Kar.”

When Shan Kar had gone Lefty Wister uttered a crow of laughter.

“The bloody fool! Don't he realize that with machine−guns and grenades we can just take his platinum and
walk off with it?”