"Andre Norton - Dipple 2 - Janus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

Naill came to the selector, closed his eyes for a long moment, and then opened them. When he put
his hand to that lever, pulled it down, he would take a step from which there would be no
returning--ever.
An hour later he was once more at Stowar's. The star-and-comet game had broken up; he found the
smuggler alone. And he was glad that was so as he put down the credit slip.
"Two fifty," Stowar read. From beneath the table he brought a small package. "Two here--and you
get fifty credits back. Signed up for off-world?"
"Yes." Naill scooped up the packet, the other credit slip.
"You coulda done different," Stowar observed.
Naill shook his head.
"No? Maybe you're right at that. There're two kinds. All right, you got what you wanted--and it's all
prime."
Naill's pace was almost a run as he came back to the home barracks. He hurried up the stairs, down
the corridor. Mara Disa looked up as he breathlessly entered.
"The medico was here again--Director sent him."
"What did he say?"
"The same--two days--maybe three . . ."
Naill dropped down on the stool by the table. He had believed Mara earlier; this confirmation should
not have made that much difference. Now he unrolled the package from Stowar--two small metal tubes.
They were worth it--worth selling himself into slavery on an unknown world, worth everything that might
come to him in the future . . . because of what they held for the dying woman who was his mother.
Haluce--the powder contained in one of those tubes--was given in a cup of hot water. Then Malani
Renfro would not lie here in the Dipple; she would be reliving for a precious space of time the happiest
day of her life. And if the thin thread that held her to this world had not broken by the time she roused
from that sleep, there was the second draught to be sure. She had had to live in terror, defeat, and pain.
She would die in happiness.
He looked up to meet Mara's gaze. "I'll give her this." He touched the nearer tube. "If--if there is
need--you'll do the other?"
"You won't be here?"
That was the worst--to go and not to know, not to be sure. He tried to answer and it came out of
him in a choked cry. Then he mastered himself to say slowly, "I--I ship out tonight . . . They've given me
two hours . . . You--you'll swear to me that you'll be with her . . . ? See"--he unrolled the slip for fifty
credits--"this--take this and swear it!"
"Naill!" There was a spark of heat in her eyes. "All right, boy, I'll swear it. Though we don't have
much to do with any of the old gods or spirits here, do we? I'll swear--though you need not ask that.
And I'll take this, too--because of Wace. Wace, he's got to get out of here . . . not by your road,
either!" Her hands tightened convulsively on the credit slip. Naill could almost feel the fierce determination
radiating from her. Wace Disa would be free of the Dipple if his mother could fight for him.
"Where did you sign for?" she asked as she went to heat the water container.
"Some world called Janus," he answered. Not that it mattered--it would be a harsh frontier planet
very far removed from the Dipple or Korwar, and he did not want to think of the future.
"Janus," Mara repeated. "Never heard of that one. Listen, boy, you ain't ate anything this morning. I
got some patter-cakes, made 'em for Wace. He musta got labor today, he ain't come back. Let me--"
"No--I'm shipping out, remember." Naill managed a shadow smile. "Listen, Mara, you see to
things--afterwards--won't you?" He looked about the room. Nothing to be taken with him; you didn't
carry baggage in a freeze cabin. Again he paused to master his voice. "Anything here you can use--it's
yours. Not much left--except . . ." He went directly to the box where they had kept their papers, their
few valuables.
His mother's name bracelets and the girdle Duan had traded for on Sargol were long since gone.
Naill sorted through the papers quickly. Those claim sheets they had never been able to use--might as