"Alan Dean Foster - Flinx 5 - Flinx in Flux" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

Jebcoat had done a little of everything. If you asked him a question there was a
fifty‑fifty chance you would get an answer. The odds on truth were lower.
Flinx did not recognize his female friends. Jebcoat saw him approaching and
broke off his conversation with the ladies to give the young man a broad smile.
One of the women turned curiously to inspect the newcomer. She was a shade under
two meters tall and wore implants that gave her pupils a silvery cast.
"This kid a friend of yours?" she asked Jebcoat without taking her eyes off
Flinx.
He stiffened momentarily until he realized she was trying to provoke him. That
was one way of taking the measure of a stranger on a world like Alaspin.
"He's no kid." Jebcoat chuckled softly. "I ain't sayin' he's a man, either.
Frankly I don't know what he is, but you'd best watch your word footing around
'im. He wears death for a play‑pretty."
As if on cue, Pip stuck her head out from beneath Flinx's collar and Scrap
stirred on his wrist. The woman's eyes flicked from mature minidrag to
adolescent. Flinx sensed no fear in her, which might mean either that she was as
bold and confident as she appeared, or simply that his damnable talents weren't
functioning at that moment.
The other woman was tall, but no giantess like her companion. "Go easy on him,
Lundameilla. He's kinda cute, though a bit on the skinny side." She laughed, a
short jittery sound that would make anyone in the vicinity grin. "You and him
going together sideways wouldn't fill up a decent doorway. Care to join us?"
Flinx shook his head. "Just a question or two. I've been out in the Ingre, and I
need to find out about somebody I ran into out there." The giantess's eyebrows
rose.
"Find anything while you were out there?" Jebcoat eyed him speculatively.
"What I was looking for." Flinx saw that his approval rating had risen another
notch. It was not considered impolite to ask questions of a stranger on Alaspin,
but it was considered foolish to reply straightforwardly. Sometimes it was worse
than foolish.
"Found something I wasn't looking for, too. About a hundred centimeters, slim,
female, twenty‑two to ‑five, pale blond with a weird haircut, and blue eyes,
though they might've been dyed recently. Very nice."
"How nice?" the other man at the table asked, speaking for the first time. He
was broad and burly and had not depilated in days.
"Extremely. She was wearing shorts and a thin shirt, one only."
"In the Ingre?" The giantess made a face.
"Millimite and drill bug bites everywhere." Flinx eyed the other man. "Also
somebody had worked her over real careful and professional‑like."
The heavyweight's smile disappeared, and he sat back in his chair. "Betty, what
a world!" He turned to Jebcoat. "Spark any circuits?"
Jebcoat considered, the mustache temporarily stilled. Finally he shook his head.
"I don't know a soul who'd be caught dead outside in the shorts, much less the
shirt. How's her condition?"
"Improving. I emptied my crawler's first‑aid kit into her. It was full when I
started."
"Damn well better have been, or you could sue the renter." He glanced at the
giantess. "Call up any memories for you, Lundy?" The tall woman shook her head.
"I don't know anybody that pretty or that stupid."