"Jack Williamson - The Happiest Creature" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williamson Jack)

men."
"
But I ain't so civilized." The anthropoid grinned bleakly. "I aim to gut-knife Gabe
Melendez, just like I did that dumb guard."
"
An incredible obsession!" The collector recoiled from the grim-lipped beast and
the idea of such raw violence. "What has this creature done to you?"
"He took the girl I wanted." The beast caught a rasping breath. "And he put the
cops on me. At least I think it was him, because I got caught not a month after I
stuck up the filling station where he works. I think he recognized me, and I aim to get
him."
"No--"
"
But I will!" The anthropoid slipped out of bed and stood towering over the fat
man defiantly, his free hand clenched and quivering. "You can 't stop me, not with all
your fancy gadgets. "
The beast glared down into the collector's bright little eyes. They looked back
without blinking, and their lack of brows or lashes made them seem coldly reptilian.
Abruptly, the animal subsided.
"Okay, okay!" He spat deliberately on the spotless floor and grinned at the
collector 's involuntary start. "What's it worth, to let him live?"
The collector shook off his shocked expression.
"
We're undercover experts and we know your planet. " A persuasive smile crept
across his gross face. "Our resources are quite adequate to take care of anything
you can demand. Just give your word not to kill again, or talk about us, and tell me
what you want."
The anthropoid rubbed his hairy jaw, as if attempting to think.
"First, I want the girl," he muttered huskily. "Carmen Quintana was her name,
before she married Gabe. She may give you a little trouble, because she don 't like me
a bit. Nearly clawed my eyes out once, even back before I shot her old man at the
filling station. " His white teeth flashed in a wolfish grin. "Think you can make her go
for me?"
"I think we can." The collector nodded blandly. "We can arrange nearly
anything."
"You'd better arrange that." The anthropoid's thin brown hand knotted again.
"And I'll make her sorry she ever looked at Gabe!"
"You don't intend to injure her? "
"
That's my business." The beast laughed. "Just take me to Las Verdades. That 's a
little 'dobe town down close to the border."

The anthropoid listed the rest of his requirements, and crossed his heart in a ritual
gesture of his tribe to solem-nize his promises. He knew when the interstellar craft
landed again, but he had to stay aboard a long time afterwards, living like a prisoner
in a sterile little cell, while he waited for the outsiders to complete their underground
arrangements for his return. He was fuming with impatience, stalking around his
windowless room like a caged carnivore, when the collector finally unlocked his
door.
"You're driving me nuts," he growled at the hairless out-sider. "What's the