"Joe Haldeman - Blood Sisters" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

forward, and near misses had gouged up my nice teak foredeck. My eye throbbed, and for
some reason my ears were ringing.
I remembered why the next second, as Helmuth fired. The spitter makes a sound like a cat
dying, but louder. I had been too preoccupied to hear it.
I unshipped a pair of binoculars to check his marksmanship. He was shooting at the
floating bodies. What a spitter did to one was terrible to see.
"Jesus, Helmuth ..."
"Some of them may yet live," he said apologetically.
At least one did. Wearing a life jacket, she had been floating face down but suddenly
began treading water. She was holding an automatic pistol in both hands. She looked exactly
like Belle and Maxine.
I couldn't say anything; couldn't take my eyes off her. She fired two rounds, and I felt
them slap into the hull beneath me. I heard Helmuth curse, and suddenly her shoulders
dissolved in a spray of meat and bone and her head fell into the water. My gorge rose and I
didn't quite make it to the railing. Deck was a mess anyhow.
Helmuth Two, it turned out, had been hit in the side of the neck, but it was a big neck and
he survived. Maxine called a helicopter, which came out piloted by Helmuth Three.
After an hour or so, Helmuth Four joined us in a large speed-boat loaded down with
gasoline, thermite, and shark chum. By that time, we had transferred the gold and a few
more important things from my boat onto the helicopter. We chummed the area thoroughly
and, as sharks began to gather, towed both hulks out to deep water, where they burned
brightly and sank.
The Helmuths spent the next day sprinkling the island with money and threats, while
Maxine got to know Belle and me better, behind the heavily guarded door of the honeymoon
suite of the quaint old Sheraton that overlooked the marina. She made us a job offerтАФa life
offer, actuallyтАФand we accepted without hesitation. That was six years ago.
Sometimes I do miss our old lifeтАФthe sea, the freedom, the friendly island, the lazy idylls
with Belle. Sometimes I even miss New York's hustle and excitement, and the fierce
independence of my life there.
We do travel on occasion, but with extreme caution. The clone that Helmuth killed in that
lovely cove might have been Belle's sister, pulled from Maxine, or Belle's own daughter,
since the Mafia had had plenty of opportunities to collect cells from her body. It's
immaterial. What's important is that if they could make one, they could make an army of
them.
Like our private army of Helmuths and Lamberts and Delias. I'm chief of security, and the
work is interesting, most of it at a console as good as the one I had in Manhattan. No
violence since that one afternoon six years ago, not yet. I did have to learn German, though,
which was an outrage to a brain as old as mine.
We haven't made any secret of the fact that Belle is Maxine's clone. The official story is
that Fraulein Kraus had a clone made of herself, for "companionship." This started a fad
among the wealthy, being the first new sexual wrinkle since the invention of the vibrator.
Belle and Maxine take pains to dress alike and speak alike and have even unconsciously
assimilated one another's mannerisms. Most of the non-clone employees can't tell which is
which, and even I sometimes confuse them, at a distance.
Close up, which happens with gratifying frequency, there's no problem. Belle has a way of
looking at me that Maxine could never duplicate. And Maxine is literally a trifle prettier: you
can't beat a real navel.