"Foster, Alan Dean - Flinx 3 - Orphan Star" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

Somehow he must extend the time Challis would grant him before destruction. Somehow ... he checked his cardmeter. He was not wealthy, but he was certainly far above beggar status. If he could stretch things a bit, be would have a few weeks to find the proper company to implement his plan.
There was one such firm located in the southern manufacturing sector of the capital. A secretary shuffled him to a vice-president, who gazed with a bemused expression at the crude plans Flinx had prepared and passed him on to the company's president.
An engineer, the president had no difficulty with the mechanical aspects of the request. Her concern was with other matters.
"You'll need this many?" she inquired, pursing her lips and idly brushing away a wisp of gray hair.
"Probably, if I know the people involved. I think I do."
She made calculations on a tiny desk computer, looked back at his list again. "We can produce what you want, but the time involved and the degree of precision you desire will require a lot of money."
Flinx gave her the name of a local bank and a number. A short conversation via machine finally caused a smile to crease the older woman's face. "I'm glad that's out of the way. Money matters always make me feel a little dirty, you know? Uh ... may I ask what you're going to use these for?"
"No," Flinx replied amiably as Pip shifted lazily on his shoulder. "That's why I came to you-a small firm with a big reputation."
"You'll be available for programming?" she asked uncertainly.
"Direct transfer, if need be."
That appeared to settle things in the president's mind. She rose, extended a hand. "Then I think we can help you, Mr....?"
He shook her hand, smiled. "Just use the bank number I gave you."
"As you wish," she agreed, openly disappointed.

The contrast between the rich blue of the ocean and the sandy hills of the Gold Coast was soft and striking. One high ridge in particular was dotted with widely spaced, luxurious private residences, each carefully situated to drink in as much of the wide bay as possible-and to provide discreet, patrollable open space between neighbors.
One home was spectacular in its unobtrusiveness. It was set back in the cliffs like a topaz in gold. Devoid of sharp corners, it seemed to be part of the grass-dusted bluff itself. Only the sweeping, free-form glassalloy windows hinted that habitation lay behind.
Nearby, curling breakers assaulted the shore with geometric regularity, small cousins of more mature waves to the south. There, at an ancient village named Surfers paradise, many-toned humans, and not a few adaptive aliens rode the surf, borne landward in the slick wet teeth of suiciding waves.
Flinx was there now, but he was watching, not participating. He sat relaxed on a low hill above the beach, studying the most recent converts to an archaic sport. Nearby rested his rented groundcar.
At the moment Flinx was observing a mixed group of young adults, all of whom were at once older and younger than himself. They were students at one of the many great universities that maintained branches in the capital. This party disdained boards in favor of the briefer, more violent experiences of body surfing. He saw a number of young thranx among them, which was only natural. The deep blue of the males and the rich aquamarine of the females was almost invisible against the water, and showed clearly only when a comber broke into white foam.
Body surfing was hardly an activity native to the thranx, but like many human sports it had been adopted joyfully by them. They brought their own beauty to it. While a thranx in the water could never match the seal-like suppleness of a human, when it came to nakedly riding the waves they were far superior. Flinx saw their buoyant, hard-shelled bodies dancing at the forefront of successive waves, b-thorax pushed forward to permit air to reach breathing spicules.
Occasionally a human would mount the back of a thranx friend for a double ride. It was no inconvenience to the insectoid mount, whose body was harder and neariy as buoyant as the elliptical boards them- selves.
Flinx sighed. His adolescence had been filled with less innocent activities. Circumstances had made him grow up too fast.
Looking down at the sand he put out a foot to impede the progress of a perambulating hermit crab. A toe nudged it onto its side. The tiny crustacean flailed furiously at the air with minute hairy legs and buried motes of indignant anger at its enormous assailant. Regaining its balance, it continued on its undistinguished way, moving just a little faster than normal. A pity, Flinx thought, that humans couldn't be equally self- contained.
Looking up and down the coast, where a citrine house lay concealed by curving cliffs, Flinx reflected that Challis should be arriving there soon from his offices in the capital.
A gull cried wildly above, reminding him that it was time....

Conda Challis had all but forgotten his young pursuer as he stepped from the groundcar. Mahnahmi ran from the house to greet him, and they both saw the solemn figure in the gray jumpsuit moving up the walk at the same time. Somehow he had penetrated the outer defenses.
Mahnahmi drew in her breath, and Challis turned a shade paler than his normal near-albino self. "Francis ..."
Challis' personal bodyguard did not wait for further verbal command. Having observed the reaction of both his employer and employer's daughter, he immediately deduced that this person approaching was something to be killed and not talked to. Pistol out, he was firing before Challis could conclude his order.
Of course, the person coming up the walk might be harmless. But Challis had forgiven him such oversights in the past, and that reinforced the man's already supreme confidence.
Challis' policy seemed to pay off, for the wildly gesticulating figure of the red-haired youth disintegrated in the awesome blast from the illegally overcharged beamer.
"And that," the shaken merchant muttered with grim satisfaction, "is finally that. I never expected him to get this close. Thank you, Francis."
The guard holstered his weapon, nodded once, and headed in to check the house.
Mahnahmi had her arms around Challis' waist. Normally, the merchant disdained coddling the child, but at the moment he was shaken almost to the point of normalcy, so he didn't shove her away.
"I'm glad you killed him," she sniffed. Challis looked down at her oddly.
"You are? But why? Why should he have frightened you?"
"Well ..." there was hesitation in the angelic voice, "he was frightening you, and so that frightened me, Daddy."
"Um," Challis grunted. At times the child's comments could be startlingly mature. But then, he reminded himself, smilingly, she was being raised surrounded by adults. In another three or four years, if not sooner, she would be ready for another kind of education.
Mahnahmi shuddered and hid her face, hid it so that Challis could not see that the shudder was of revulsion and not fear. Francis returned and took no notice of her. She had experienced the thoughts Challis was now thinking all her life, knew exactly what they were like. They were always sticky and greasy, like the trail a snail left behind it.
"Welcome home, sir. Dinner will be ready soon," the servant at the interior door said. "There is someone to see you. No weapons, I checked thoroughly. He insists you know him. He is waiting in the front portico."
Challis snorted irritably, pushed Mahnahmi away ungently. It was unusaal for anyone to come here to conduct business. The Challis offices in the tritower downtown were perfectly accessible to legitimate clients and he preferred to keep his personal residence as private as possible.
Still, it might be Cartesan with information on that purchase of bulk ore from Santos V, or possibly ... he strolled toward the portico, Mahnahmi trailing behind him.
A figure seated with its back to him stared out the broad, curving window at the ocean below. Challis frowned as he began, "I don't think..."
The figure turned. Having just barely regained his composure, Challis was caught completely unprepared. The organic circuits that controlled the muscles of his artificial left eye twitched, sending it rolling crazily in its socket and further confusing his thoughts.
"Look," the red-haired figure began rapidly, "you've got to listen to me. I don't mean you any harm. I only wantЕ"
"Francis!" the terrified merchant shrieked at the sight of the ghost.
"Just give me a minute, one minute to explain," Flinx pressed. "You're only going to ruin your furniture if ..." He started to rise.
Challis jumped backward, clear of the room, and stabbed frantically at a concealed switch. A duplicate of that switch was set just outside of every room in the house. It was his final security and now it worked with gratifying efficiency.
A network of blue beams shot from concealed lenses in the walls, crisscrossing the room like a cat's cradle of light. Two of them neatly bisected the form standing before him. He had had to wait until the figure rose or the beams would have passed over it.
Now the merchant let out a nervous little laugh as the figure collapsed, awkwardly falling against the couch and then tumbling to the floor. Behind him, Mahnahmi stared with wide eyes.