"Ken Rand - Bad News from Orbit" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rand Ken)

“A few weeks earlier, while doing a search and destroy with my unit, I come across a card, ‘twas a
diamond seven, tucked behind this rock, sorta. Didn't say diddly at the time. It didn't seem important
then, but I thought on it a lot, later. I went back by and by, alone, and staked out the card, you know.
Sure enough, a reb come for it."

“For one card?"

“His deck was incomplete, y'see."

“So what happened?"

“Well, I tried to take him but he outgunned me and got away. He about killed me."

“But I don't understand—"

“D'you recall me telling you to shut up a bit ago?"

I shut up.

****

Horiuchi walked into the labyrinth for a few hours, found a spot, sat down, took out his cards and
started playing solitaire. He continued playing hour after hour. He didn't move from the spot except to
piss behind a nearby rock.

Late on the third day, Horiuchi awoke from a catnap abruptly, a pulse rifle muzzle in his nose. Before he
got a glimpse at his captors, they blindfolded him and tied his hands behind his back. Someone took his
cards. Strong arms helped him stand.

“Don't talk,” a gruff voice whispered. “Walk."

Horiuchi walked, firm hands on each elbow keeping him from stumbling over obstacles. He smelled
bodies long unwashed. He didn't bother to remember the turns, dips, and rises in the journey with his
silent escorts, nor to time it. He'd been lost since an hour after he'd first entered the passageways. He
figured he was now being taken to somebody he could talk to.

He found the person he sought in a cavern that looked like every other cavern in the underground
complex. Somebody pushed him to the floor and he sat hard. Somebody ripped the blindfold off and he
squinted into a bright light directly ahead, aimed at him. A man squatted on heels before him, silhouetted
in the light. The man had about him the air of leadership Horiuchi recognized from experience. Small,
skinny and boyish, as far as Horiuchi could tell through the bright light, but something about the man said
“leader."

The leader-person accepted the cards from one of the reb escorts. He rifled expertly through the deck,
grunted, made a hand motion and the bright light turned away from Horiuchi. Somebody untied his hands.

“We caught all your friends,” the reb leader said, voice a husky rasp. “Stripped them, put them in a bag,
and set them all outside the door. Nobody hurt, yours or ours."