"Henry Kuttner - We Guard the Black Planet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kuttner Henry)

spuming against the rocks. Above us, the stars shone brightly.

And on Nils' wrist, where it had returned, the gerfalcon Freya rested, drowsy,
stirring a little from time to time, but content to remain there.

It had been thus forty years and more ago, Nils said, in his youth, when the
hot blood went singing through his veins, and the Viking spirit flamed within
him. The seas were tamed.

The way of his ancestors was no longer open to him. But there were new
frontiers open—

The gulfs between the stars held mysteries, and Nils signed as A. B. on a
spaceship, a cranky freighter, making the Great Circle of the trade routes.
Earth to Venus, and swinging outward again to the major planets.

The life toughened him, after a few years.

And in Marspole North, in a satha-divs, he ran into Captain Morse Damon,
veteran of the Asteroid War.

Damon told Nils about the Valkyries—the guardians of the Black Planet.

He was harsh and lean and gray as weathered rock, and his black stare was
without warmth. Sipping watered satha, he watched Nils Esterling, noting the
leatheroid tunic worn at cuffs and elbows, the frayed straps of the elasto
sandals.

"You know my name."

"Sure." Esterling said. "I see the newstapes. But you haven't been mentioned
for a while."

"Not since the Asteroid War ended, no. The pact they made left me out in the
cold. I had a guerilla force raiding through the Belt. In another year I could
have turned the balance. But after the armistice—"

Damon shrugged. "I'ttt no good for anything but fighting. I kept a ship; they
owed* me that. The Vulcan. She's a sweet boat, well found and fast. But I
can't use her unless I sign up with the big companies. Besides, I don't want
to do freighting. The hell with that. I've been at loose ends, blasting around
the System, looking for—well, I don't know what. Had a shot or two at
prospecting. But it's dull, sinking assay shafts, sweating for a few tons of
ore. Not my sort of life."

"There's a war on Venus."

"Penny-ante stuff. I'm on the trail of something big now. On the trail of—" he
smiled crookedly—"ghosts. Valkyries."