"Joseph Delaney - Lords Temporal" - читать интересную книгу автора (Delaney Joseph)

by only a hair, as he frantically leapt back up on the curb, shaking his fist in the air.
The Mallory's driver must have first seen him at that instant. He must also have been greatly startled at what had
almost happened. He turned sharply away from the curb. Then he tried to correct.
But by that time he was out of the intersection. There, the driver made a second mistake and laid his
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Joseph H. Delaney
foot heavily on the brake. Lacking friction on the frozen slush, the brakes could lock, but they could do
nothing else, and natural laws sent the car onward in the direc-tion of its present motion. That motion was
toward the next cornerтАФthe one where, down the street, the lone cop sat in his cruiser.
Wyckoff watched. The car slid onward, its momen-tum undiminished either by the driver's frantic brak-ing
or his erratic steering. Nothing he did would stop the car. A fireplug slowed it, though its upper casting
broke off instantly as the car plunged on.
A torrent of water rose high into the air, where it was caught by the icy wind. Wyckoff's clothing was
satu-rated with freezing droplets before he could take a step. His chance to survive the night outside
vanished, though he quickly moved out of the worst of it.
Already the numbing cold was seeping into him. He knew he'd have to go with the police now; he'd die if
he didn't. If he was lucky they might not bother to check his fingerprints against the files. Wyckoff knew
that doing that was a lot of trouble, and that as a bum he wouldn't rate close attention. If they learned he
was a deserter from the Corps he would be in real trouble, but the odds were that these guys would
understand and hold him only long enough to dry him off.
He started to turn to find the foot cop, intending to surrender and be marched off to jail. The cop could
hardly have failed to hear the crash and should be coming around the corner any moment.
Wyckoff waited patiently, glancing behind nervously. He was growing colder by the instant, and still there
was no cop. He was about to start walking to the squad car and give himself up when he heard wheels
squeal-ing behind him. He looked at the Mallory, now station-ary with its nose against a building and its
back wheels turning frictionlessly in a snowbank. The driver couldn't be conscious; not unless he was so
stupid or drunk that he planned to drive through that wall.
Wyckoff despaired of finding the cop. The cop, too,
lords temporal 9
must be unconscious from his fall, or else they had received another call with a higher priority than this and leftтАФleft
Wyckoff here to freeze to death.
Well, Wyckoff would see about that. Though he was even now starting to shiver uncontrollably, he struggled through
the drift of snow toward the trapped car. Its rear wheels were still spinning.
He reached it and grasped the handle to the driver's door, hoping it would not be locked. It came open with a crunch
that told Wyckoff the hood had been forced back against its leading edge.
Inside, the driver lay against the wheel, out like a light but moaning softly. He smelled heavily of the sauce and was
bleeding from the nose. Its bridge looked curiously and unnaturally flattened, and it was starting to swell. Blood was
trickling from the corner of the driver's mouth, which made his injuries look more seri-ous than they actually were.
Wyckoff had seen enough battered mugs in his time to know the difference.
Wyckoff noticed something else. The car was warm inside. Somewhere below the dash a catalytic heater filled the
interior with the characteristic odor of burn-ing alcohol.
Not by any means a man to disdain comfort, Wyckoff slammed the driver's door and raced around to the passenger's
side. He slid in gratefully and began soak-ing up heat. After a moment he felt the edge of the chill leave him, and he
stopped shivering. Then he reached down and pulled the driver's foot off the accelerator pedal. The squealing
stopped.
Wyckoff took a look out the back window, wondering how long it would be before somebody noticed the ruined
hydrant, connected its condition to this car, and threw both him and the driver in a cell. Certainly this would happen
long before Wyckoff's clothing was dry. Wyckoff liked being warm so well that he decided to take the car somewhere
where he could cozy out the night next to the heater. The driver wouldn't know; drunk as he was, he wouldn't care,
either.