"Alan Dean Foster - Icerigger 1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

beamer was shaking slightly. "Get in that boat, now!" A nervous glance at one wrist. Both gunmen
ignored their other prisoner.

"Well, now, I don't know ... I'd like to oblige you, but it's so hard to remember what the right
thing to do is, anymore. Maybe I'd better wait ..."

Weasel-face threw up his hands and looked to heaven for help-not caring that its position in the
universe was only relevant to the temporary set of the ship.

The big man said "Ow!", in no uncertain terms. He promptly dumped the girl to the floor. She
rolled over from the ungentle landing and sat up slowly. Her-curses diminished in volume but not
originality. Ethan slumped a little. She weighed at least two hundred pounds and she was not
es-pecially tall.

"Bit me," said the big man unnecessarily. He sucked at the injured member. "Listen now, du Kane.
We're running out of time. It's out of our hands, see? First this shrimp shows up," he indicated
mousey, still watching attentively, "and now you've got to be obstinate. Won't do you any good."

"Well, I don't know ..." du Kane said hesitantly. His eyes moved to the girl.

"You stay put, father." She looked up at the big man and Ethan noticed that that plump face had
two startlingly green eyes peering out of it. "If you hit my father, you'll likely kill him ...
he's an old man. Give this idiocy up. I'll see to it that you're not shot out of hand, at least.
And father won't press charges. He's too busy to bother with your variety of scum."

Du Kane! Well, that placed him and the girl . . mighty calculating type, her ... gambling on her
father's frailty like that. Hellespont du Kane was chairman of the Board of Kurita-Kinoshita Ltd.
Among other things, they made the drives for interstellar ships. To say he was wealthy was to say
the planet below tended away from the tropic. No doubt here was a man of whom it could be said, he
really was made of money.




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A good salesman, Ethan rapidly summarized the situation by categorizing the players. Two
kidnappers, two kidnappees, and one trapped innocent bystander. He wondered why they didn't shoot
the little fellow.

The question was now of more than academic concern be-cause the big man with the sore thumb was
staring right at him. It occurred to Ethan as he stared down the muzzle of the beamer that he'd
spent a little too much time gaping and far too little in disappearing. He took a step backward.

"Just on my way to luggage bay three ... sorry to intern-"

"Hold it right there, flotsam." The big man turned to his partner. "What now, Walther?"

"Rama not another one! Is everyone on this ship nocturnal?" !mother glance wristward. "We've got