"Alan Dean Foster - Aliens Vs Predator - War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

and the silent appraisal from the Hunters behind her was a palatable thing. No way they'd missed what
had hap-pened.

The mask hid her grin, and there was no point in laughing. If there was any greater dishonor in Clan
eti-quette, she'd never heard of it. Not only had he been denied an honorable death, his peers and betters
had just seen him have his fighting done for himтАФand by an alien, no less, one even smaller than he.

Shorty stood perfectly still, head tilted down at the drone body. One of the other young males started to
laugh, a clattering, trilling sound that always made her think of a bird with a broken windpipe trying to
sing. He was quickly joined by the others.

Not so much fun being laughed at, is it?

Noguchi shot a look at the assembled Hunters in time to see Topknot signal "enough" and growl a
com-mand to Shorty. She only recognized the sound of his name, but knew what Topknot had asked
even before Shorty walked stiffly toward the Leader; he'd been as-signed to be in the middle of the hive
line, protected front and back.

He wouldn't laugh at her anymore, but it would be wisest not to let her guard down until Shorty was
Blooded and gone. She almost felt bad for him, but re-

minded herself that if he wasn't such an asshole, she would have let him die; he deserved the dishonor,
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for being such a goddamn bully.

Topknot signaled for them to proceed, Noguchi tak-ing her position second to lastтАФShorty's place.
When someone screwed up in battle, the other yautja gener-ally congratulated each other on getting a
better spot, a growling, shoving version of a high fiveтАФbut no one would look at her, and as they started
down the entry tunnel, the temperature and humidity rising with each uneven step, Noguchi felt as isolated
and ignored as usual.

Doesn't matter, I don't need their approval to Hunt and if I wanted friends, 1 would have left Ryushi with
the colo-nists, gone back to Earth.

Where she'd never had any friends.

Before they'd gone ten meters, all of her defenses were securely back in place. The queen was close,
and the thrill of knowing she'd be facing a queen mother again, even as part of a team, would go a long
way to compensate for the loneliness of the past year. The drones were as stupid and mindless as ants,
but the egg-layer, the queen . . .

An opponent worthy of respect, cunning and re-sourcefulтАФand one she felt more of a connection to
than any of the yautja she'd encountered, with the ex-ception of the one they'd called Dachande, Broken
Tusk. The one who'd died after Blooding her, after the massacre on Ryushi. The one who'd led her to
believe that the yautja were a race capable of appreciating any skilled Hunter, no matter what speciesтАФ