"3 Star Brothers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bova Ben)

She shrugged her naked shoulders "I don't know yet But they'll get their guts ripped out if they try to take over my corporation "

Stoner chuckled in the darkness "That's my woman What'd Business World call you 'The tigress of the corporate jungle '"

She laughed too, but there was anxiety behind it "Keith, I can handle the corporate battles And I can balance Baker and his Third World friends against the corporate interests on the IIA It's you I'm frightened about "

"I'll be all right "

In the darkness her voice took on a sharper, harder note "Don't you understand' Hsen's out to kill you' I'm going to strike first, before he gets the chance "

"And be just like him' What good would that do'"

"It'll keep you alive, Keith'"

He shook his head "Hsen is not the enemy He's just acting out of fear "

"Dammit, Keith Sometimes you carry this sainthood crap too far"

Startled, "Sainthood'"

Jo was immediately sorry More softly she said, "Okay, so I'm a tigress I know you're not a tiger, Keith Not a street fighter But you've got to protect yourself, got to let me protect you "

Stoner countered, "Look Even if you could kill Hsen someone else would take his place So there'd be another assassin

coming after me, with the added excuse of avenging Hsen's murder "

fo said nothing, but he could feel her body tensing, like a true jungle cat just before it springs

"Deliberately killing a human being is the worst thing you can do, Jo Not because there's a rule against it written in some book, but because it always leads to more killing Because the human race hasn't quite learned yet how to deal with its animal instincts We're supposed to be working on the side of life, not death Life is precious Human life is the most precious of all "

"Oh, for Christ's sake, Keith, if there's one thing we've got too much of on this planet, it's human beings And most of them aren't worth the effort it would take to blow them to hell "

In a near-whisper Stoner replied, "If you only knew how rare life is, truly rare among all those stars "

But Jo refused to be drawn in that direction "What happens if Hsen kills you? What do you expect me to do?"

"Jo, we're in a race against time You knew that when we started down this road, fifteen years ago "

"But the closer we get to the end the more dangerous it becomes "

He nodded abstractedly, as if his mind were really elsewhere "The biochips are the next step If the human race can absorb that technology, then we're almost finished "

"I've got our lab people working as hard as they can go," Jo said "Biochips will be an important product for Vanguard "

"It's more than that, Jo Much more," Stoner said "Biochips can help us get around the limits on brain size set by the female's birth channel, the first chance to expand the capacity of the human brain in hundreds of thousands of years, Jo'"

"You're blaming women for the limits on brain size?"

He laughed "All the great religions of the world blame women for humankind's troubles Didn't you know that?"