"E. E. Doc Smith - D' Alembert 2 - Stranglers Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

ceiling, he had
come to gamble-and the mob on the floor was packed so densely that he could
not see
so much as a single gaming table.

"I told you we should have gotten here earlier," he said to his wife Karen,
who stood
beside him and looked as bewildered as he felt. Nils found he had to yell to
be heard
above the room's din, even though his wife was only centimeters away. "But you
wanted
to stop and eat first. We should have left when I wanted to.
"
"I didn't know it would be this crowded," she apologized.

A stranger who'd been standing behind them came to the woman's rescue. "Don't
blame
her, gospodin. The Golden Crater is like this around the clock. Vesa is `the
moon that
never sleeps,' you know; these casinos are ample proof of that.

Nils grunted noncommittally and would have walked away, but Karen struck up a
conversation with the man who'd saved her from a tongue-lashing. "You seem to
know a
lot about it. Do you live here on Vesa?"

The stranger laughed. He was a tall, thin man with brooding eyes and a dark
complexion.
His clothing was almost as conservative as Nils's, comprising a lightweight
brown jacket
and flared pants, a stiff white shirt and a gold sash tied about his waist.
"No, gospozha, I
don't think I'd care to. It's all too hectic, too busy; I'd go crazy in two
weeks. I do travel a
lot, though, and I come here fairly often-every couple of months, at least.

"This is our first time," Karen gushed. "I've been wanting to come for years
and years-it's
not as if we couldn't afford it. But Nils-my husband-is a banker, and he's
always busy
with one deal after another. You'd think the entire planet would fall apart
without him
there to look after it. I finally had to put my foot down and tell him that we
were going to
Vesa, now, or else.

"Hmpf," snorted her husband as he craned his neck to look over the throng of
gamblers
on the floor. "Some vacation it's been, too. I haven't had a moment to relax
since we got