"E. C. Tubb - Dumarest 25 - The Terridae" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tubb E. C)

functional utility. The field was an expanse of rutted dirt,
deserted now, the warehouses sagging and empty. Once there
had been a bustling tide of commerce but the veins of valuable
ores had been exhausted, the operation closed down, sheds and
workers abandoned. Among them had been the local factor.

"Earl!" He rose as Dumarest entered his store. "Man, it's good
to see you!"

Mel Glover was a one-time face-worker who had been hurt in
an accident and now dragged a useless foot. A big, broad man
with a rugged build and a face marred with a perpetual scowl, he
ran the store and acted as agent and hated every moment of it.
He found surcease in talk and drugs and exotic dreams. Now he
frowned as Dumarest set down the boy.

"Anton! What the devil have you been up to?" He looked at
Dumarest. "He find you or what?" The frown deepened as he
listened to an answer. "Caught in the brambles—anything else?"

An attempt on his life, theft, a man lying dead—but Dumarest
chose not to elaborate. He said, "That's it. I heard him and found
him and brought him in. You know where he lives?"

"In the Drell."

"With his people?"

"His mother. His father got himself killed last year." Glover
reached into a jar and threw the boy a ball of wrapped candy.
"Here, lad. Can you walk? Try hopping. Good. Off you go now."
As the boy hopped away, sucking his sweet, the basket hung over
one arm, he added, "I bet you didn't know he could do that."

"No."

"But you know he's a mute?"

Dumarest nodded and looked around the store. It was as he
remembered, cluttered with a variety of produce, most of local
manufacture. Baskets of woven reed filled with delicate blooms
rested beside pots of sunbaked clay crammed with spices, seeds,
sections of narcotic weed. A bale held furs, another the tanned
hides of ferocious lizards, the scales seeming to be made of nacre
traced with silver, jet and gold. Products of minor value but still
worth collecting by ships content with small profits. Beneath a
window facing the foothills stood a bench, a book lying on its
surface together with a pair of powerful binoculars.

"You've been out almost a month," said Glover. "I was