"Peter F. Hamilton - A Second Chance At Eden" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Peter F)

Dicko snatched a fast glance at the agitated beastie and gave another of his prissy bows.
"I won't press you any further, but I do ask you to think over what I proposed." He turned on a
heel, snapping his fingers for the girl to follow. She scampered off through the door.
The team closed in on me with smiles and fierce hugs.
Time for the bout, they formed a praetorian guard to escort me out to the pit. The air
around the arena was already way too hot, and becoming badly humid from the sweat and
breath of the crowd. No conditioning. Naturally.
My ears filled with the chants rising from the seats, slow handclaps, whistles, hoots,
catcalls. The noise rumbled sluggishly round the dark empty space behind the stand.
Under the scaffolding, reverberating with low-frequency harmonics. Then out into an
unremitting downpour of harsh blue-white light and gullet-rattling noise. Cheering and
jeering reached a crescendo. Every centimetre of wooden seating was taken.
I sat in my seat on the edge of the pit. Simon was sitting directly opposite me, naked
from the waist up; lean, bald, and sable black. A stylistic ruby-red griffin tattoo fluoresced on
his chest, intensity pulsing in time to his heartbeat. Big gold pirate earrings dangled from
mauled lobes. He stood to give me the grand fuckittoyou gesture. Urban Gorgons fans
roared their delight.
"You OK, Sonnie?" Ivrina whispered.
"Sure." I locked eyes with Simon, and laughed derisively. Our side's supporters
whooped rapturously.
The ref bobbed to his feet halfway round the side of the pit. The PA came on with a
screech, and he launched into his snappy intros. Standard soundbite fodder. Actually, he's not
so much a ref as a starter. There aren't too many rules in beastie-baitingтАФyour creature must
be bipedal, no hardware or metal allowed in the design, no time limit, the one left alive is the
winner. It does tend to cut out any confusion.
The ref was winding up, probably afraid of getting lynched by an impatient crowd.
Simon closed his eyes, concentrating on his affinity link with Turboraptor.
An affinity bond is a unique and private link. Each pair of cloned neuron symbionts is
attuned to its twin alone; there can be no interception, no listening in. One clump is
embedded in the human brain, the other is incorporated in a bioware processor. It's a perfect
tool for Baiting.
I closed my eyes.
Khanivore was waiting behind the webwork of scaffolding. I went through a final
systems check. Arteries, veins, muscles, tendons, fail-soft nerve-fibre network,
multiple-redundant heart-pump chambers. All on line and operating at a hundred per cent. I
had the oxygenated blood reserves to fight for up to an hour.
There wasn't anything else. Vital internal organs are literally that: vital. Too risky to
bring into the pit. One puncture and the beastie could die. One! That's hardly a fair fight. It's
also shoddy combat design. So Khanivore spends most of its time in a life-support pod,
where the ancillary units substitute functions like the liver, kidneys, lungs, and all the other
physiological crap not essential to keep it fighting.
I walked it forward.
And the crowd goes wild. Predictable as hell, but I love them for it. This is my
moment, the only time I am truly alive.
 Turboraptor was already descending into the pit, the makeshift wooden ramp sagging
under its weight. First chance for a detailed examination.
The Urban Gorgons team had stitched together a small bruise-purple dinosaur, minus
tail. Its body was pear-shaped with short dumpy legsтАФdifficult to topple. The arms were
weird, two metres fifty long, five joints apieceтАФexcellent articulation, have to watch that.
One ended in a three-talon claw, the other had a solid bulb of bone. The idea was good, grip