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

flat, empty eyes of one who had been on more than one happy-dust spree. Now he simply sat with his
shoulders planted against the side of the cart, his twitching hands hanging between his knees, a
burned-out hulk.
The one who had been sick still leaned against the tailboard, clawed fingers anchoring him to that
prudent position. Fair hair grew sparsely on a round skull; his skin was dough-white. Naill had seen his
like before, too. Some skulker from the port who had signed on for fear of the law--or because he had
chanced to cross a powerful Veep of the underworld.
"You--kid--" The man Naill watched turned his head. "Know anything about this place?"
Naill shook his head. "Labor recruiter said Janus--agriculture." In spite of the jiggling process of the
cart, he ventured to pull himself up, wanting a chance to see the countryside.
They were following a road of beaten bare earth, running between fenced fields. Naill's first
impression was of somberness. In its way this landscape was as devoid of color and life as the blocks of
the Dipple.
The plants in the fields were low bushes set in crisscross lines, while the fences which protected them
were stakes of peeled wood set upright, a weaving of vines between them. Mile after planet mile of such
fields--but, in the far distance, a dark smudge that might mark either hills or woodland.
"What's all that?" The man had moved away from the tailboard, edging around to join Naill.
Naill shrugged. "I don't know." They might be companions in exile here, but he felt no liking for the
other.
Small but very bright and knowing eyes surveyed him. "From the Dipple, ain't you, mate? Me--I'm
Sim Tylos."
"Naill Renfro. Yes, I'm from the Dipple."
Tylos snickered. "Thought you was gonna get yourself a new start off-world, boot? The counters
don't never run that way 'cross the table. You just picked yourself another hole to drop into."
"Maybe," Naill replied. He watched that smudge at the meeting of the drab, unhappy land with a sky
that carried a faint tinge of green. Suddenly he wanted to know more about that dark line, approach it
closer.
The hop-shuffle of the animals drawing the wagon was swift. And the group of five wagons, their
own the leading one, was covering ground at a steady and distance-eating pace. Sim Tylos with a lifted
finger indicated the driver of their own cart. "Suppose he'll talk a bit?"
"Ask him."
Naill let Tylos pass him but did not follow when the other took his stand behind the driver's seat.
"Gentlehomo--" Tylos's voice was now a placating whine. "Gentlehomo, will you--"
"Whatcha want, fieldman?" The younger Kosburg's basic was even more gutturally accented than his
father's.
"Just some information, gentlehomo--" Tylos began. The other cut in: "Like where you're goin' and
what you'll be doin' there, fieldman? You're going right on to the end of the fields--to the Fringe, where
like as not the monsters'll get you. And what you'll be doin' there is good hard work--'less you want the
Speaker to set your sins hard on you! See them there?" He flicked the end of his encouragement pole at
the bushes in the fields. "Them's our cash crop--lattamus. You can't set out lattamus till you have a bare
field--no shoots, no runners, nothin' but bare field. And on the Fringe getting' a bare field takes some
doin'--a mighty lot of axin', and grubbin', and cuttin'. We aim to get us some good lattamus fields 'fore
you all go to account for your sinnin'.
" 'Course"--young Kosburg leaned over to stare straight into Tylos's eyes--"there're some sinners as
don't want to aid the Clear Sky work--no, they don't. And them has to be lessoned--lessoned good.
My sire back there--he's a good lessoner. Speaker puts the Word on him to reckon with real sinners.
We're Sky People--don't hold with killin' or such-like off-world sinnin'. But sometimes lessonin' sits
heavy on hard-hearted sinner!"
Though his words might be obscure, his meaning was not. There was a threat there, one that young
Kosburg took pleasure in delivering. Tylos shrank back, sidled away from the driver's seat. Kosburg