"Daniel, Tony - A Dry, Quiet War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Daniel Tony)

Two months later, I was in Thredmartin's when Bex came in with an evil look on
her face. We had taken getting back together slow and easy up till then, but the
more time we spent around each other, the more we understood that nothing basic
had changed. Bex kept coming to the ranch and I took to spending a couple of
nights a week in a room her father made up for me at the hotel. Furly Bexter was
an old style McKinnonite. Men and women were to live separately and only meet
for business and copulation. But he liked me well enough, and when I insisted on
paying for my room, he found a loophole somewhere in the Tracts of McKinnon
about cohabitation being all right in hotels and hostels.
"The glims are back," Bex said, sitting down at my table. I was in a dark corner
of the pub. I left the fire for those who could not adjust their own internals
to keep them warm. "They've taken over the top floor of the hotel. What should
we do?"
I took a draw of beer нн Thredmartin's own thick porter нн and looked at her.
She was visibly shivering, probably more from agitation than fright.
"How many of them are there?" I asked.
"Six. And something else, some splice I've never seen, however many that makes."
I took another sip of beer. "Let it be," I said. "They'll get tired, and they'll
move on."
"What?" Bex's voice was full of astonishment. "What are you saying?"
"You don't want a war here, Bex," I replied. "You have no idea how bad it can
get."
"They killed Rall. They took our money."
"Money." My voice sounded many years away, even to me.
"It's muscle and worry and care. You know how hard people work on Ferro. And for
those ... things ... to come in and take it. We cannot let themнн"
" нн Bex," I said. "I am not going to do anything."
She said nothing; she put a hand on her forehead as if she had a sickening
fever, stared at me for a moment, then looked away.
One of the glims chose that moment to come into Thredmartin's. It was a
halandana, a splice нн human and jan нн from up-time and a couple of possible
universes over. It was nearly seven feet tall, with a two-foot-long neck, and
stooped to enter Thredmartin's entrance. Without stopping it went to the bar and
demanded morphine.
Thredmartin was at the bar. He pulled out a dusty rubber, little used, and
before he could get out an injector, the halandana reached over, took the entire
rubber and put it in the pocket of the long gray coat it wore. Thredmartin
started to speak, then shook his head and found a spray shooter. He slapped it
on the bar, and started to walk away. The halandana's hand shot out and pushed
the old man. Thredmartin stumbled to his knees.
I felt the fingers of my hands clawing, clenching. Let them loosen; let them go.

Thredmartin rose slowly to one knee. Bex was up, around the bar, and over to
him, steadying his shoulder. The glim watched this for a moment, then took its
drug and shooter to a table, where it got itself ready for an injection.
I looked at it closely now. It was female, but that did not mean much in
halandana splices. I could see it phase around the edges with dead, gray flames.