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To either side of the street, now, the shacks and small shops, built of slate
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and split dried seaweed stalks, pressed ever closer, and life clotted more
thickly about them. Human children, grimed and ragged, played in the street
with near-featureless Capella-anthropoids, young, immature Carnegie Twelve
Armadillos, Martian frog-children.
Hundreds of small Portman multipedes darted underfoot like lizards; most of
them would be killed by their parents for reasons never quite understood by
men. Yellowbirds - ostrich-like bipeds with soft yellow scales - strode
quietly through the crowd, heads raised high, eyes rolled up. Like a parade of
monsters in a dipsomaniac's delirium passed the population of Sclerotto City.
Stalls at either side of the street displayed simple goods - baskets, pans, a
thousand ustensiles whose use only the seller and the buyer knew. Other shops
sold what loosely might be termed food - fruits and canned goods for men, hard
brown capsules for the Yellowbirds, squirming red worm-things for the
Aldebaranese. And Magnus Ridolph noticed here and there little knots of
tourists, for the most part natives of Earth, peering, talking, laughing,
pointing.
Boek pulled his car up to a long corrugated-metal shed, and again they stepped
out into the dust.
The warehouse was full of a hushed murmur. Scores of tourists walked about,
buying trinkets - carved rock, elaborately patterned fabrics, nacreous jewels
that were secreted in the bellies of the Kmaush, perfumes pressed from
seaweed, statuettes, tiny aquaria in sealed globes, with a microscopic lens
through which could be seen weirdly beautiful seascapes peopled with
infusoria, tiny sponges, corals, darting squids, infinitesimal fish. Behind
loomed bales of the planet's staple exports: seaweed resin, split dried
seaweed for surfacing veneer, sacks of rare metallic salts.
"There's the warehouse manager," said Boek, nodding toward an antlike creature
standing waist high on six legs. It had dog-like eyes, a pelt of satiny gray
fur, a relatively short thick thorax. "Do you want to meet him? He can talk,
understand you. Mind like an adding-machine."
Interpreting Magnus Ridolph's silence as assent, Boek threaded the aisles to
the Tau Gemini insect-thing.
"I can't introduce you," said Boek jovially - Magnus Ridolph noticed that he
assumed affability like a cloak in the presence of the town's citizens -
"because the manager here has no name."
"On my planet," said the insect in a droning accentless voice, "we are marked
by chords, as you call them.
Mine is - " A quick series of tones came from the two flaps near the base of
his head."
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ja...20Many%20Worlds%20of%20Magnus%2
0Ridolph.html (42 of 132) [10/18/2004 3:43:07 PM]
THE MANY WORLDS OF MAGNUS RIDOLPH by Jack Vance
"This is Magnus Ridolph, representing the Mission Headquarters."
"I'm interested," said Magnus Ridolph, "in identifying the criminal known as
McInch. Can you help me?"
"I'm sorry," came the ant-creature's even vibrations. "I have heard the name.
I am aware of his thefts. I do not know who he is."
Magnus Ridolph bowed.
"I'll take you to the fire-chief," said Boek.
The fire-chief was a tall blue-eyed Negro with dull bronze hair, wearing only
a pair of knee-length scarlet trousers. Boek and Magnus Ridolph found him at
an observation tower near the central square, with one foot on the bottom rung
of the ladder. He nodded to Boek.
"Joe, a friend of mine from home," said Boek. "Mr. Magnus Ridolph, Mr. Joe
Bertrand, our fire-chief."
The fire-chief darted a swift surprised glance at Magnus Ridolph, at Boek, and
back again. "How do you do," he said as they shook hands. "I think I've heard
your name somewhere before."
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"It's an uncommon name," said Magnus Ridolph, "but I presume there are other
Ridolphs in the
Commonwealth."
Boek looked from one to the other, shifted his weight on his short legs,
sighed, looked off down the street.
"Not many Magnus Ridolphs, though," said the fire-chief.
"Very few," agreed the white-bearded sage.
"I suppose you're after McInch."
"I am. Can you help me?"
"I know nothing about him. I don't want to. It's healthier."
Magnus Ridolph nodded. "I see. Thank you, in any event." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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