" Perry Rhodan 0051 - (43) Life Hunt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Rhodan)

 The about-face had struck Rohun as positively uncanny, however, and John Marshall suddenly heard the
Springer captain become energetic. "Huxul, would you please tell me why you’ve come here and what
I’m being suspected of?"

At that moment Marshall lowered the intensity of the suggestive force beamed at the Ara. The secret
agent still had no idea that he was telling the whole truth and that he wasn’t supposed to. Rohun listened
intently and with interest, then he sat back comfortably, smiled in amusement and commented: "Your little
social call doesn’t seem at all so harmless to me now, Huxul! Yes, I remember this Ixt. A clever fellow,
expert in the field of zoology. By the way, zoology is also my hobby. That’s why I remember this Ixt so
well. If I’m not mistaken, he boarded my ship on the 3rd planet of Star J5457KL and we brought him
directly to Tolimon. My dear Huxul, we galactic traders will do just about anything when there’s a profit
to be made and now and then our spacers will take on passengers. They pay for their voyage from one
planet to another, of course. But Ixt was brought here a long time ago! What connection do I have with
him now, Huxul?"

From his hiding place John Marshall forced the Ara agent to tell the truth again and Huxul was quite
unaware that he had thus lost his effectiveness as a secret agent. He described the routine checking by
Tolimon’s huge positronic brain and how in reviewing Ixt’s file it had discovered that some of the
information was not consistent. "Since then, yesterday, I’ve had to bother myself with this laughably trivial
matter," Huxul concluded, "when it would interest me far more to find out who stole the latest method for
preserving Immunity Serum X-1076 in spite of the robot guards in Serum Works G-F 45. There’s never
been anything like this thievery, Rohun! And I had to give up that case so I could sniff after an animal
dealer named Ixt! Of course, there’s nothing you can tell me about this Ixt, right?"

Rohun answered with the most honest face he could muster. "Not a thing." Then he shook Huxul’s hand
goodbye. There are people one would rather see leaving than coming and Huxul was definitely in the
former category. Rohun was much relieved to see him go.

Presently, Marshall and Rohun sat facing each other once more.

"I’d really like to buy the details of that preservation method," Marshall said.

Rohun shook his head. "My agents and I have had absolutely nothing to do with it. But I think I do know
who ‘obtained’ it. Shall I get in touch with the other ‘interested party’ for you, Ixt? And how much are
you willing to pay for the data?"

"I won’t go higher than 15,000," Marshall answered. "When will I know if the other party is willing to
sell?"

"Tomorrow," said Rohun.

"Fine," agreed Marshall. "And tomorrow I’m also going to have need of an identical twin. For that I’m
going to get another disguise. You still have 3 make-up artists in your service, so let them know their job
is duplicating my face so well I can’t tell the difference myself."

"Do you have a dangerous operation in mind?" asked Rohun with an unhappy suspicion the answer
would be yes. He was gradually finding Ixt’s initiative distressing.

"Huxul is going to show up at my store tomorrow," Marshall replied, "and he’ll try to return the
hiobargulloo pair. At the same time, he’ll also try to make a recording of my brainwaves with his ‘cage’."