"Eric Frank Russell - The Waitabits" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russell Eric Frank)

eagerness two decades back.
"I have here the latest consignment of scout reports," Mark-ham went
on. He made a disparaging gesture. "You know what they're like.
Condensed to the minimum and in some instances slightly mad. Happy
the day when we receive a report detailed with scientific thoroughness."
"You'll get that only from a trained mind," Leigh commented. "Scouts
are not scientists. They are oddities who like roaming the loneliest reaches
of space with no company but their own. Pilot-trained hoboes willing to
wander at large, take brief looks and tell what they've seen. Such men are
useful and necessary. Their shortcomings can be made up by those who
follow them."
"Precisely," agreed Markham with suspicious promptness. "So this is
where we want you to do some following."
"What is it this time?"
"We have Boydell's latest report beamed through several relay stations.
He is way out in the wilds." Markham tapped the paper irritably. "This
particular scout is known as Gabby Boydell because he is anything but
that. He uses words as if they cost him fifty dollars apiece."
"Meaning he hasn't said enough?" asked Leigh smiling.
"Enough? He's told us next to nothing!" He let go an emphatic snort.
"Eighteen planets scattered all over the shop and not a dozen words about
each. He discovers a grand total of eighteen planets in seven previously
unexplored systems and the result doesn't occupy half a page."
"Going at that speed, he'd not have time for much more," Leigh
ventured. "You can't write a book about a world without taking up
residence for a while."
"That may be. But these crackpot scouts could do better and it's time
they were told as much." He pointed an accusative finger. "Look at this
item. The eleventh planet he visited. He has named it Pulok for some
reason that is probably crazy. His report employs exactly four words: 'Take
it and welcome.' What do you make of that?"
Leigh thought it over carefully. "It is inhabitable by humankind. There
is no native opposition, nothing to prevent us grabbing it. But in his
opinion it isn't worth possessing."
"Why, man, why?"
"I don't know, not having been there."
"Boydell knows the reason." Markham fumed a bit and went on, "And
he ought to state it in precise, understandable terms. He shouldn't leave a
mystery hanging in mid-air like a bad smell from nowhere."
"He will explain it when he returns to his sector headquarters, surely?"
"That may be months hence, perhaps years, especially if he manages to
pick up fuel and replacement tubes from distant outposts. Those scouts
keep to no schedule. They get there when they arrive, return when they
come back. Galactic gypsies, that's how they like to think of themselves."
"They've chosen freedom," Leigh offered.
Ignoring that remark, Markham continued, "Anyway, the problem of
Pulok is a relatively minor one to be handled by somebody else. Ill give it
to one of the juniors; it will do something for his education. The more
complicated and possibly dangerous tangles are for older ones such as
yourself."