"Gordon R. Dickson - The Outposter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

The guard who had not been in trouble had his gun half drawn. Mark reached over and knocked it back
down into the holster.

"I'll handle it," Mark said.

He turned and took three steps to meet the charging colonist. Some six feet from him, the scarlet and
gold figure suddenly bent double without breaking stride and launched itself like a missileтАФright arm
stiffly outstretched, hand open, and fingers up, the butt of the palm leading at an almost impossible angle
with the wrist.

It was aki stroke, by one who was more than a casual amateur in that school of un-armed combat. The
advantage of momentum and angle was all with the attacker, as the staring guards, if not the girl, knew.
The counter was as simple as theki stroke itself, but like theki stroke, its success depended upon that
sort of split-second timing acquired only by monotonous and countless hours of practice.

In the fraction of a second before the lethal palm-butt touched him, Mark fell stiffly off to his left side,
catching himself on his out-stretched left arm and levering his right leg up and out stiffly in a sideways
kick. The rising bar of his leg slammed into the groin of his flying attacker and flipped the body in midair,
landing it heavily on its back a few yards beyond. The big man, stunned, tried momentarily to rise,then fell
back uncon-scious.

The guards were upon him immediately, pinning the unresisting arms and legs. One of them produced a
hypo gun loaded with a tranquillizer; the other spoke rapidly into the phone on his wrist and called for
extra guards. Mark walked over to them as they finished their several tasks.

"What's his number?" Mark asked. "I may want him."

The guard who had just finished using his phone reached for the tag around the tanned throat of the
unconscious colonist.

"Sixteen hundred and twenty-nine, of yes-terday's date," the guard said.

"Thanks," said Mark.

"Not at all, sir."The guard who had answered was the one who had been talking himself into trouble with
the girl. He looked at Mark now with gratitude mingled with a new respect that ignored Mark's
youthfulness. "That was pretty, that counter."

"Thanks," said Mark. He turned and went back over to where the girl was standing, staring down at the
fallen man. For a moment, seeing the look on her face, he felt something almost like a surge of sympathy
for her.

"You see," he told her, "a pellet from a little wrist gun like yours won't stop a charge like that. But a
heavy slug from a side arm will. It has more mass, and so more stopping power."

Her head came around slowly. She stared at him incredulously for a second. Then, instinctively, he took
a step backward and the open edge of her hand lashed past his face.
"YouтАФ" she choked it off. "Did you have to hurt him like that?YouтАФdisposable!"