"Andre Norton - Ross Murdock 02 - Uncharted Stars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

which he gave me in bits and pieces, must have rivaled the lore of the famed
Zacathan libraries, which are crammed with centuries of learning. Who--or
what--Eet was he would never say. But that I would ever be free of him again
I greatly doubted. I could resent his calm dictatorship, which steered me
on occasion, but there was a fascination (I sometimes speculated as to
whether this was deliberately used to entangle me, but if it was a trap it
had been very skillfully constructed) which kept me his partner. He had told
me many times our companionship was needful, that I provided one part, he
the other, to make a greater whole. And I had to admit that it was through
him we had come out of our brush with Patrol and Guild as well as we
had--with a zero stone still in our possession.
For it was Eet's intention, which I could share at more optimistic times, to
search out the source of the stones. Some small things I had noted on the
unknown planet of the caches made me sure that Eet knew more about the
unknown civilization or confederation which had first used the stones than
he had told me. And he was right in that the man who had the secret of their
source could name his own price--always providing he could manage to market
that secret without winding up knifed, burned, or disintegrated in some
messy fashion before he could sell it properly.
We had found a ship in a break-down yard maintained by a Salarik who knew
bargaining as even my late master (whom I had heretofore thought unbeatable)
did not. I will admit at once that without Eet I would not have lasted ten
planet minutes against such skill and would have issued forth owning the
most battered junk the alien had sitting lopsidedly on rusting fins. But the
Salariki are feline-ancestered, and perhaps Eet's cat mother gave him
special insight into the other's mind. The result was we emerged with a
useful ship. It was old, it had been through changes of registry many times,
but it was, Eet insisted, sound. And it was small enough for the planet
hopping we had in mind. Also, it was, when Eet finished bargaining, within
the price we could pay, which in the end included its being serviced for
space and moved to the port ready for take-off.
But there it had sat through far too many days, lacking a pilot. Eet might
have qualified had he inhabited a body humanoid enough to master the
controls. I had never yet come to the end of any branch of knowledge in my
companion, who might evade a direct answer to be sure, but whose supreme
confidence always led me to believe that he did have the correct one.
It was now a simple problem: We had a ship but no pilot. We were piling up
rental on the field and we could not lift. And we were very close to the end
of that small sum we had left after we paid for the ship. Such gems as
remained in my belt were not enough to do more than pay for a couple more
days' reckoning at the caravansary, if I could find a buyer. And that was
another worry to tug at my mind.
As Vondar's assistant and apprentice, I had met many of the major gem buyers
on scores of planets. But it was to Ustle that they opened their doors and
gave confidence. When I dealt on my own I might find the prospect bleak,
unless I drifted into what was so often the downfall of the ambitious, the
fringes of the black market which dealt in stolen gems or those with dubious
pasts. And there I would come face to face with the Guild, a prospect which
was enough to warn me off even more than a desire to keep my record clean.
I had not found a pilot. Resolutely now I pushed my worries back into the