They're cutting down the woods again,
They make steel in the heat of battle.
We will pay for progress
The usual head...
And who's right, who's to blame.
There's a firestorm over the cities again,
And the nabbath swings.
Above the broken years.
Г Nikiforova
All three stories are dedicated to her.
For her wonderful songs, without which maybe these lyrics wouldn't exist...
1
The Esanagra harbor cantina in Pandat was almost a favorite with Ray Quinn. Not too dark, moderately dirty - and where in the Galaxy are they clean, except for military bases and corporate stations? But here they served a tolerable meal, and the museum was not a bad one. It seems that today, again, the bit-slitzerchonist played, as well as the last time. Quinn heard his name, but did not remember, and could hardly pronounce correctly, phonetics they have a terrible. Ray looked around the room, checking for any old acquaintances among the visitors: I did not want to start the evening with a fight today. I walked up to the bar, snapped my fingers. The bartender didn't pay any attention to Quinn at first, and Ray had to repeat it out loud:
- Hey, you, you're the client talking to you!
- Just a minute! - The long and wiry bartender, barely half the size of Ray, gave him a short look, finished making a cocktail, and only then turned to Quinn, pretending to be willing to serve with all his appearance: "What do you want, Mr. Client?
- One hundred grams for an appetite. And beacon there to the kitchen to prepare a meal.
- Right away, sir. Any of our specialities?
- I know your signature dishes, they've been cooked for ages," Ray said. - You tell me to bring me meat. Do you have any nerfyatin?
- Yes, sir.
- Great! Tell them to fry weakly, I hate it when the charcoal on my teeth crunch. And don't try to slip me a local stag, let his farmers burst into explosions.
- What are you, sir? Nerf is also from Taanab, but he is the most natural, very gentle. What will you do for the meat?
- Corellian potato straw. And salad, it can also be branded.
- Yes, I do. Wine?
- A bottle of emerald.
- It will be performed. Salad will be served immediately, the meat will have to wait... - the bartender looked under the counter on the display - seven and a half minutes.
Quinn knocked over a stack of strong in his mouth right at the bar, then chose a table away from the counter, near the thick pylon supporting the vault. Behind him, however, sat some overgrown runt, or a merian or agnot half-blooded, with a glass of cheap alcohol and a clay plate half-filled with curled dried crustaceans from Manaan. One glance at a stunted creature was enough to make the stranger shrink and get away with it. Ray sat down with his back to the pylon, and immediately the squeaky droid waiter put a salad in front of him, laid out the device. Oh, sterile packaging? This wasn't the case last time. They grow. Or maybe the New Order made me. According to rumors, the mandatory sterilization of dishes is being actively implemented in the central worlds. It is inexpensive, but it looks spectacular. Ray did not like the Empire, in particular, for these elements of showmanship, and even more - for the rigidity of the orders. There is no room for private initiative. Compare it with something in Quinn's business got into the war, then the rules of the game differed significantly for the better. A couple more years of "tightening the screws", and the private sector "run out" completely, will remain large companies like the one where Ray himself served, and stinking smugglers, for money ready to violate any laws.
The branded salad was not as crappy as one might expect, although it had a special name. Ray tried something like that on a dozen planets, and everywhere but this cantina, the salad was called the same. Quinn's meat wasn't swallowed up without pleasure - the chef fried it just the right way, sorry, the side dish was dried out.
- How are you, handsome? - At the table sat down a girl-twiler, dressed in a very frivolous way. Ray looked up at her, and the representative of the ancient profession repulsed. The eyes of a man in a dandy corporate uniform, with branchesy radial veins, were pressing with lead-gray, causing goosebumps on the back and shiver in the knees.
- Go away! - Ray said with a low, vibrating voice. - Don't make me be rude.
It washed away the Twileca from the table. She didn't know Quinn was bluffing. He was too well-bred to hurt the woman. Even though Ray's prostitution wasn't really approved of that kind of thing. Feeling he was in a bad mood, he started eating again. Here he heard a fragment of a dialogue between two local residents, the look of the planetary speeders' chauffeurs.
- ...and in vain," said one. - There are people who literally attract ... things. One pain, another breakage. Have you heard what they say about the port manager's assistant? Appeared in the hangar - something would break down after him. Either inside or on a ship.
- Yeah, on the other side of the galaxy after a month's flight! - laughed at the second one. - Tell me about the other correct sign. They say that when Scam Vasi from the Warning Center appears in a pub somewhere, there is a fight.
- You don't have to believe it," he said.
