"James Alan Gardner - League of Peoples 04 - Hunted" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gardner James Alan)

"Shit," the woman muttered to no one in particular. Then she looked up into my eyes, and said, "Kiss
me. Now."

"What?"

She didn't answer; she just bent her elbows, twisting my wrists so I was levered down close to her.
Pushing up hard on tiptoe, she jammed her mouth against mine. Open. And her tongue swept inside
urgently, moving fast, her eyes closed tight.

I closed my eyes too. Feeling strange and fizzy, as if I'd been drinking myself: the taste of the woman
who tasted like wine, the touch of her pressing against me. I knew this wasn't a love kiss, or even a sex
kissтАФit was fear, pure fear, some awful terror that made her want to be holding someone as tight as her
arms and heart could squeeze. Like a little girl who felt better for hugging her brother, when the lightning
and thunder rattled outside. I held the woman and let her kiss me as desperately as she wanted, while the
clock continued toward thirteen.

Gong.

Gong.

Gong.
 Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html




Gong.

The woman's tongue stopped. Her grip on my arms loosened and her lips eased back. When I opened
my eyes, I saw her head loll to one side. A string of saliva trailed across the purple-red splotch on her
cheek.

Her eyes hadn't opened.

As I unwrapped myself from the Coy-Grip position, the woman's weight slumped away from me. Trying
to hold her up, I called to the rest of the room, "Can somebody help here? I think..."

But by then, I'd had time to look around.

The man in pink pajamas had fallen on his face. The drunk he'd been holding was on the floor too, lying
half-in/half-out of his hologram. The hologram was tilted at an odd angle.

Over against the wall, the soldier and the thistle bush had sagged straight down, still connected to each
other. Their holos had gone askew, so that the head of the longest thistle stuck out of the Roman's back
like the hilt of a sword.

People all around the room sprawled limply over the furniture or spread-eagled on the carpet. Even the
captain. One of his hands lay on the ground, poking out through the edge of the hive-queen's shell.

Silence. No more gongs.