[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
sucker enough to try."
He tickled me. I finally pulled my attention entirely from the skater patterns
on the ice.
"So?" I said, mimicking his own trick of argument When he got serious like
this, he talked with the explosive-ness of a nineteen-twenties car backfiring.
"I better not plan to ask you for help if I'm crazy enough to take her on,
then? That it?"
"Damnrightl" He stopped backfiring suddenly, turned full on to face me, and
switched to purring like an asthmatic alley cat "But you're smart. You know
well as I do how many ways there are to peel a grape tike that Now, if you'd
just let old Cramps do the talking-for your bunch and mine only-I tell you I
can deal with someone tike her...."
"Sure you can," I said. "And with you dealing with her for your people and
mine, all the other groups would be forced into joining us, in their own
self-defense. Which would leave her with the idea-particularly since you could
help it along while you were doing the dealing-that you were the real power in
this area, the man to settle with; and, tike all the rest, I was in your
pocket**
"Screw your He swung away from me to stare out the window at the skating
party. Hie cold afternoon was darkening fast; and his fat profile, against the
dimming fight, showed panting and angry. "Let her take your balls then. See if
I make you a neighborly offer tike that a second timel"
I grinned. He could not help himself. It was simply m him to push for an
advantage as long as he had the strength to do it If I ever realty needed an
alliance with him, I knew he would jump at the thinnest offer. From what Bill
had told me, we would have had very little trouble conquering all our
neighbors, including Cramps and his dan, if we took the notion. But all this
did not alter the facts that the Empress was nothing to grin about and that
the old man had a head on his shoulders. I sobered.
"What's this about her having three hundred full-time soldiers, aircraft and
artillery?" I asked. "Where'd you hearthatr
"One of my boys came back from the west coast** he said.
"Back from the west coast?" I said. "When did any one of your people go out
there?"
"Ah, it's some time back," he said, taking a drink from bis snifter. He was
lying and I knew it but I couldn't waste half an hour pinning him down to the
Page 149
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
truth, "the point is, he was in San Luis Obispo. There's an old army camp
outside that town, and she's been using it as a training area. All the people
in town know about the planes and the helicopters and the guns. And the
soldiers came into San Luis Obispo every night to bit the bars. They've got
four actual bars in there."
"She's got half the world to go after down to the top of South America, and
the other half clear up to Alaska," I said. "What makes you think she'd be
coming this way?"
"Don't be a jerk," grunted Ryao. "It's not country you take over nowadays.
It's people. The important places. And this place is important enough. It's
got you here."
Unfortunately, he was right. It bad gradually begun to dawn on me, since I
came from living exclusively inside my own skull, how much I was considered
some sort of post-time storm wizard, not only among the people of our own
community, but generally around the globe. Why they had settled on me and not
on Porniarsk-or even on Bfll, for that matter-puzzled me. Possibly Bill was
not colorful enough to make good myth and legend; and Porniarsk could be
considered too inhuman to be judged the wizard rather than the wizard's
familiar. But it was a fact that this impression of me seemed to be spreading
all over the world, according to the shortwave talk we heard, no doubt growing
more wild and hairy the greater its distance from anyone who had ever seen me
hi person.
That being the case, it suddenly made sense why the Empress might mount an
expedition in my direction. She could hardly lose. If I was as magical as
rumor had it she would be acquiring a valuable sort of Merlin. If I was not [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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sucker enough to try."
He tickled me. I finally pulled my attention entirely from the skater patterns
on the ice.
"So?" I said, mimicking his own trick of argument When he got serious like
this, he talked with the explosive-ness of a nineteen-twenties car backfiring.
"I better not plan to ask you for help if I'm crazy enough to take her on,
then? That it?"
"Damnrightl" He stopped backfiring suddenly, turned full on to face me, and
switched to purring like an asthmatic alley cat "But you're smart. You know
well as I do how many ways there are to peel a grape tike that Now, if you'd
just let old Cramps do the talking-for your bunch and mine only-I tell you I
can deal with someone tike her...."
"Sure you can," I said. "And with you dealing with her for your people and
mine, all the other groups would be forced into joining us, in their own
self-defense. Which would leave her with the idea-particularly since you could
help it along while you were doing the dealing-that you were the real power in
this area, the man to settle with; and, tike all the rest, I was in your
pocket**
"Screw your He swung away from me to stare out the window at the skating
party. Hie cold afternoon was darkening fast; and his fat profile, against the
dimming fight, showed panting and angry. "Let her take your balls then. See if
I make you a neighborly offer tike that a second timel"
I grinned. He could not help himself. It was simply m him to push for an
advantage as long as he had the strength to do it If I ever realty needed an
alliance with him, I knew he would jump at the thinnest offer. From what Bill
had told me, we would have had very little trouble conquering all our
neighbors, including Cramps and his dan, if we took the notion. But all this
did not alter the facts that the Empress was nothing to grin about and that
the old man had a head on his shoulders. I sobered.
"What's this about her having three hundred full-time soldiers, aircraft and
artillery?" I asked. "Where'd you hearthatr
"One of my boys came back from the west coast** he said.
"Back from the west coast?" I said. "When did any one of your people go out
there?"
"Ah, it's some time back," he said, taking a drink from bis snifter. He was
lying and I knew it but I couldn't waste half an hour pinning him down to the
Page 149
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
truth, "the point is, he was in San Luis Obispo. There's an old army camp
outside that town, and she's been using it as a training area. All the people
in town know about the planes and the helicopters and the guns. And the
soldiers came into San Luis Obispo every night to bit the bars. They've got
four actual bars in there."
"She's got half the world to go after down to the top of South America, and
the other half clear up to Alaska," I said. "What makes you think she'd be
coming this way?"
"Don't be a jerk," grunted Ryao. "It's not country you take over nowadays.
It's people. The important places. And this place is important enough. It's
got you here."
Unfortunately, he was right. It bad gradually begun to dawn on me, since I
came from living exclusively inside my own skull, how much I was considered
some sort of post-time storm wizard, not only among the people of our own
community, but generally around the globe. Why they had settled on me and not
on Porniarsk-or even on Bfll, for that matter-puzzled me. Possibly Bill was
not colorful enough to make good myth and legend; and Porniarsk could be
considered too inhuman to be judged the wizard rather than the wizard's
familiar. But it was a fact that this impression of me seemed to be spreading
all over the world, according to the shortwave talk we heard, no doubt growing
more wild and hairy the greater its distance from anyone who had ever seen me
hi person.
That being the case, it suddenly made sense why the Empress might mount an
expedition in my direction. She could hardly lose. If I was as magical as
rumor had it she would be acquiring a valuable sort of Merlin. If I was not [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]