"Maybe you girls ought to get up, now. The telecast
isn't till 1930, but there's a lot to be done getting ready."
Dalla yawned. "What I get, trying to be a cop," she said, then caught
the other girl's hands and rose, pulling her up. "Come on, Zinna; we
have to get to work!"
* * * * *
Vall rose from behind the reading-screen in Ranthar Jard's office,
stretching his arms over his head. For almost an hour, he had sat there
pushing buttons and twiddling selector and magnification-adjustment
knobs, looking at the pictures the Kholghoor-Nharkan cops had taken with
auto-return balls dropped over the spatial equivalent of Sohram. One set
of pictures, taken at two thousand feet, showed the central square of
the city. The effects of the Croutha sack were plainly visible; so were
the captives herded together under guard like cattle. By increasing
magnification, he looked at groups of the barbarian conquerors, big men
with blond or reddish-brown hair, in loose shirts and baggy trousers and
rough cowhide buskins. Many of them wore bowl-shaped helmets, some had
shirts of ring-mail, all of them carried long straight swords with
cross-hilts, and about half of them had pistols thrust through their
belts or muskets slung from their shoulders.
Pages:
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171