"E. C. Tubb - Dumarest 06 - Lallia" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tubb E. C)

To wake, rising through layers of ebon chill to light and the
stimulating warmth of the eddy currents… the screaming agony of
returning circulation without the aid of drugs to numb the pain so that
throat and lungs grew raw with the violence of shrieking torment.

Sheyan said quietly, "You've traveled Low?"

"Yes."

"Often?"

Dumarest nodded, thinking of a skein of barely remembered journeys
when he'd traveled doped and frozen and 90 percent dead. Riding in the
bleak cold section in caskets meant for the transport of livestock, risking
the 15 percent death rate for the sake of cheap travel. Risking, too, the
possibility of a sadistic handler who reveled in the sight and sound of
anguish.

"So Elgart's dead," mused Sheyan. "You could be right in what you
assume, but he didn't play his tricks with me. Even so, he came from one
of the big ships and a man doesn't do that without reason. You want his
job?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I want to leave Aarn," said Dumarest. "Working a passage is better
than traveling Low."

Anything, thought Sheyan, was better than traveling Low; but Aarn
was a busy world and a hard worker would have little trouble in gaining
the cost of a High passage.

He leaned further back in his chair, shrewd eyes studying the figure
standing before him. The man was honest, that he liked, and he was an
opportunist—few would have acted so quickly to fill a dead man's shoes.
He looked at the clothing, at the spot above the right boot where the
plastic caught the light with an extra gleam. The hilt of a blade would
have caused such a burnishing and it was almost certain that the knife
was now tucked safely out of sight beneath the tunic.

His eyes lifted higher, lingering on the hard planes and hollows of the
face, the tight, almost cruel set of the mouth. It was the face of a man
who had early learned to live without the protection of house, guild, or
combine. The face of a loner, of a man, perhaps, who had good reason
for wanting a quick passage away from the planet. But that was not his
concern.