JК
World Of Ptavvs :: Нивен Ларри
Страница: 83 из 127But even the pilot couldn't think of a way back up.
Kzanol/Greenberg, of course, had no warning at all. At its present setting his radar would have shown Kzanol's ship as more transparent than air. Even the planet itself was translucent. Kzanol/Greenberg kept watch over the radar screen, sure that if Masney missed the suit, he wouldn't.
"Why isn't the other ship searching too?" Anderson wondered. "It's just floating."
"Ordinarily," said Garner, thinking out loud, "I'd think they were, in cahoots. There's no need for them both to search. But how? Oh. I get it. The ET has taken control of Masney and Greenberg. Either that or he's letting them do his job for him without their knowing it."
"Wouldn't the job get done quicker if they both searched?"
"I'm beginning to wonder if this alien isn't the aristocrat's aristocrat. Maybe he thinks that anyone who works is a slave. Since he's a master… But the real question is, what are they searching for, and where is it?
"Look, son, why don't you warm up the radio and point the maser at our fleet of Belters. I might as well fill them in."
One thing about the Belt ships: at least the air plant could handle pipe tobacco. The man in the third ship was the only man in the fleet who took advantage of the fact, one of exactly six in the entire Belt. He was known, not too affectionately, as Old Smoky.
Once he had been a flatlander. For nearly thirty years he had piloted a succession of circumlunar tourist boats. His nights he had spent in a small, cheap apartment a few stories above the vehicular traffic level in Los Angeles. On holidays he went to the beach, and was lucky to find enough clear sand to sit on; his vacations were spent in foreign cities, strange and novel and undeniably fascinating but generally just as crowded as Los Angeles.
Once he stayed two weeks in what was left of the Amazon jungle. He smuggled some cigarettes in with him, risking two years in prison, and ran out in five days. When he found he was telling every friend and stranger how much he wanted a smoke, he went back to the cities.
He had met Lucas Garner in the line of duty; Garner's duty. There was a massive sit-in to protest rumored corruption in the Fertility Board; and when the law hauled Smoky off the top strip he met Garner in the uniform of a police chief. Somehow they got to be friends. Their respective views on life were just close enough to make for violent, telling, fun arguments. For years they met irregularly to argue politics. Then Luke joined the Arms. Smoky never forgave him.
Kzanol/Greenberg, of course, had no warning at all. At its present setting his radar would have shown Kzanol's ship as more transparent than air. Even the planet itself was translucent. Kzanol/Greenberg kept watch over the radar screen, sure that if Masney missed the suit, he wouldn't.
"Why isn't the other ship searching too?" Anderson wondered. "It's just floating."
"Ordinarily," said Garner, thinking out loud, "I'd think they were, in cahoots. There's no need for them both to search. But how? Oh. I get it. The ET has taken control of Masney and Greenberg. Either that or he's letting them do his job for him without their knowing it."
"Wouldn't the job get done quicker if they both searched?"
"I'm beginning to wonder if this alien isn't the aristocrat's aristocrat. Maybe he thinks that anyone who works is a slave. Since he's a master… But the real question is, what are they searching for, and where is it?
"Look, son, why don't you warm up the radio and point the maser at our fleet of Belters. I might as well fill them in."
One thing about the Belt ships: at least the air plant could handle pipe tobacco. The man in the third ship was the only man in the fleet who took advantage of the fact, one of exactly six in the entire Belt. He was known, not too affectionately, as Old Smoky.
Once he had been a flatlander. For nearly thirty years he had piloted a succession of circumlunar tourist boats. His nights he had spent in a small, cheap apartment a few stories above the vehicular traffic level in Los Angeles. On holidays he went to the beach, and was lucky to find enough clear sand to sit on; his vacations were spent in foreign cities, strange and novel and undeniably fascinating but generally just as crowded as Los Angeles.
Once he stayed two weeks in what was left of the Amazon jungle. He smuggled some cigarettes in with him, risking two years in prison, and ran out in five days. When he found he was telling every friend and stranger how much he wanted a smoke, he went back to the cities.
He had met Lucas Garner in the line of duty; Garner's duty. There was a massive sit-in to protest rumored corruption in the Fertility Board; and when the law hauled Smoky off the top strip he met Garner in the uniform of a police chief. Somehow they got to be friends. Their respective views on life were just close enough to make for violent, telling, fun arguments. For years they met irregularly to argue politics. Then Luke joined the Arms. Smoky never forgave him.