"Down in Flames" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

VIII

Passing himself as Truesdale is trivial; who'd look beyond the facade of
a man-parody done in coconuts and walnuts? To command Truesdale's
organization he need only locate it, and he does. Truesdale ruled them
with money; he's got a nice little commercial empire going.
Data on Grogs tells him nothing he didn't know. Eventually he'll have
to go to Down. Meanwhile, he investigates Slavers.

IX

His major step is to steal the Sea Statue (see World of Ptavvs) from the
Smithsonian. Kzanol, the only known Thrint, is in there. Shaeffer kidnaps
an expert on Slaver artifacts. He sets up some safeguards, hopefully
adequate, and opens the suit.
The safeguards include a Grog tourist: a hairy cone, bald on top, split
halfway down by her wide smile, eyeless, earless . . . and her rock, and
the tractor treads it's been mounted on. It turns out she's not needed
yet. Kzanol is in the suit when Shaeffer breaks the stasis field around
it. But there's a butcher knife in Kzanol. As any fool might have
guessed, Jack Brennan (see Protector) would never have left Kzanol alive in
there, and the odd sense of humor (a butcher knife?) pretty well
identifies his work
But the corpse is enough. There are enough relics of Tnuctip biological
engineering around: sunflowers, stage trees, Bandersnatchi. Schultz-Mann
the expert on Slavers (for economy we'll make her a woman with Plateau
eyes; that trait may well come in handy) says that Kzanol is of Tnuctip
manufacture. So, when Shaeffer produces it, is the corpse of an alien
attacker.
Chains of hypothesis lead Shaeffer to part of the truth. There was no
Slaver race and no Slaver War. It's all Tnuctipun, and they're still
around.
What do they look like? (We know only the attacking alien.)
Why the deception?
What are they planning?
How did Beowulf Shaeffer get into it at all?

X

Shaeffer takes some time to ready Earth's and the Belt's defenses
against a return of the attackers. As a protector Shaeffer isn't bothered
by plans that take years to reach fruition. When he's convinced that human
space is safe, he moves on to the Kzinti empire, taking with him the Grog,
and Schultz-Mann, and a loose Kzinti tourist with a full name. With his
aid, drop the word: something dangerous is going on, be ready.
Then, a four hundred light-year trip in hyperdrive, taking four years.
Shaeffer took a big ship and stocked it with tools and raw materials. He's
got time to build gravity generators. With these he can match velocities
with the lost slowboat, board, and retrieve the entire crew. There are
some problems here with culture shock; these humans date from the time of