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

space-scoured metal. Their war had begun a hundred years earlier, when the first Survey Scout had
marked Janus for human settlement. An earlier attempt to conquer the world for man had failed. Then
these off-worlders had come and stayed. But still the forest had been cleared only a little--a very little.
Settlers were moving portward from the scattered garths, gathering at the town they hated but which
they had to endure as their link off-world. These were hard men, bound together by a stern, joyless,
religious belief and unshakable self-confidence. These were men who labored steadily through the
daylight hours, who mistrusted beauty and ease as part of deadly sin, who forced themselves and their
children, their labor slaves, into a dull pattern of work and worship. Such came now to buy fresh labor in
order to fight the forest and all it held.




TWO

FRINGE OF FOREST
"This is the lot, garthmaster. Why should I hold back my wares?" The cargomaster of the space
freighter balanced lightly, his fists resting on his hips, a contemptuous light in his eyes. Beside the
would-be customer he was wire-slim and boyish in appearance.
"For forest biting, for fieldwork, you bring such as these?" His contempt was as great, but divided
between the spaceman and his wares.
"Men who still have something to bargain with do not sign on as labor, as you well know,
garthmaster. That we bring here any at all is something to marvel at."
The settler himself was quite different from the miserable company he now fronted. In an age when
most males of Terran descent, no matter how remote from the home planet that strain might be,
eradicated facial and body hair at its first appearance, this hulking giant was a reversion to primitive times.
A fan of dense black beard sprayed across his barrel chest masking his face well up on the cheekbones.
More hair matted the backs of his wide hands. As for the rest of him, he was gray--his coarse fabric
clothing, his hide boots, the cap pulled down over more bushy hair.
His basic speech was guttural, with new intonations, and he walked heavily, as if to crush down some
invisible resistance. Tall, massive, he resembled one of the trees against which he and all his kind had
turned their sullen hatred, while the men before him seemed pygmies of a weaker species.
 There were ten of those, still shaken by the process of revival, and none of them had ever been the
garthmaster's match physically. Men without hope, as the cargomaster had pointed out, were
labor-signers. And by the time they had reached that bottom in any port, they were almost finished
already, both physically and mentally.
The settler glowered at each, his eyes seeming to strip the unfortunate they rested upon in turn,
measuring every defect of each underfed body.
"I am Callu Kosburg--from the Fringe. I have forty vistas to clear before the first snow. And
these--these are what you offer me! To get an hour's full labor out of any would be a gift from the Sky!"
He made a sign in the air. "To ask a load of bark for such . . . it is a sin!"
The cargomaster's expression was serious. "A sin, garthmaster? Do you wish to accuse me of such
before a Speaker? Here--now? If so, I shall bring forward my proof--so many credits paid for sign-on
fees, cost of transportation, freeze fees. I think you will find the price well within allowed bounds. Do you
still say 'sin,' Garthmaster Kosburg?"
Kosburg shrugged. "A manner of speaking only. No, I make no charge. I do not doubt that you
could bring your proof if I did. But a man must have hands to help him clear--even if they are these puny
crawlers. I will take this one--and this--and this." His finger indicated three in the labor line.
"Also--you." For the first time he spoke directly to one of the laborers on view. "Yes, you--third man
from the end. What age have you?"