"William C.Dietz - Sam McCade 2 - Imperial Bounty" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dietz William)

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 Prologue
McCADE WAS HUNTING an icecat. Or maybe the icecat was hunting him. It wasn't clear which,
but it didn't matter much, since he was in deep trouble either way. First, because he didn't know much
about hunting icecats, and second, because icecats knew a lot about hunting people. Which wasn't too
surprising since they'd been at it for fifty years. That's how long humans had been on the iceworld called
Alice. The process of natural evolution had molded icecats into killers, and to them, humans were targets
just like everything else.
Naturally the colonists had fought back, but it wasn't easy. Icecats can move with amazing speed, and
never give up. Their name comes from a vague resemblance to Terran cats. Unlike Terran felines
however, icecats have heat-sensitive membranes located in the center of their foreheads. Operating like
infrared scanners, these membranes allow them to lock onto radiated heat, and follow it even through a
raging blizzard if necessary. They also have excellent vision, good hearing, and lots of teeth. All of which
explains why icecats are normally hunted by well-armed groups instead of individuals. "Not that I planned
it this way," McCade said to himself.
It had all begun when a roaming icecat attacked a small herd of variant caribou about twenty miles to
the south. In a matter of minutes the rampaging beast had almost wiped them out. By the time Lane
Conners arrived, there were bodies everywhere. And when Conners attempted to defend a wounded
animal, the icecat jumped him too. He had used his pocket com to call for help. Moments later his wife,
Liz, hit the big red panic button just inside the door of their pre-fab dome and raced to his side. A general
distress call went out, and as luck would have it, McCade was closest.
McCade was returning home from a series of routine law and order visits to the small mining
settlements which dotted Alice when the alarm came in. It had been a long trip. But on Alice you don't
ignore a distress call. Not if you want anyone to show up when it's your ass on the line. Amazingly
enough the rancher was still conscious when the medics arrived. As they loaded him into the chopper he
grabbed McCade's arm. "Get the sonovabitch for me, Sam. Otherwise he'll be back... and next time it
might be Liz or one of the boys."
McCade saw such agony in the rancher's eyes that like a fool he agreed, ready to say anything to get
Lane into the helicopter and on his way. So as the med evac chopper disappeared into the southern sky,
McCade got into his air-car and took off toward the north. What looked stupid now had seemed
reasonable back then. Rather than wait for help, or take the time to put together a pack, he'd decided to
follow the icecat's tracks north hoping for a quick, easy kill. He should've known better. When it comes
to icecats ... there's no such thing as a quick, easy kill.
So he'd dropped his aircar into a clearing, and set out on foot, trying to get ahead of the beast and
ambush it. But so far all he'd seen was ice, snow, and the low, twisted evergreens which passed for trees
on Alice. "Where the hell are you anyway?" he asked in frustration, but there was no answer except the
crunching sound of his own footsteps as he walked through the ice and snow. Around him the shadows
grew longer and darker, creating a thousand hiding places, any of which might conceal an icecat.
As evening approached it brought with it a frigid breeze, supercooled by glaciers a hundred miles to
the north, and sharp as a knife against the small area of unprotected skin at his throat. Walking cautiously