"Tara K. Harper - Lightwing" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harper Tara K)

docks. Kiondili Wae could not afford to jeopardize her po-
sition, no matter how temporary it was. For the privilege of
paying her rent, she could live with being late to her morning
class. If she was lucky, she would not even lose her turn in
the lab.
Tuning out the last field interference, she checked her re-
sults against the model in the holotank. They were good. Now
she could hurry. She hauled herself up from the floor, stag-
gering as her cramped legs refused to hold her weight, then
shut the system down quickly. She turned the holotank off.
Then she tore the temple jacks from her head, stuffing
them in one of her pockets. She was at least ten minutes late.
Two more minutes to check out with the ship's controller,
one minute to the nearest free-boost chute, two minutes to
the labтАФshe might just make it before the professor took her
name off the access list and let someone else into the lab.
She barely waited for the controller to hand her credit chit
back before jumping off the ramps and sprinting to a boost
chute. Level-three pay . . . For a nonguild sensor, this kind
of credit opportunity came along only once a year, and with
her credit chit as thin as her regulation jumper, Kiondili had
not hesitated to work a double night shift. Her scholarship
had barely paid her tuition to the end of the year. Without
the few jobs she had found this year, she would not have
been able to afford even her meager rent. The first two days
on this job had paid the rent for the last month, including the
late fine, and the last two days would pay it up for the next
six weeks. And she was still set for mealsтАФthe ten credits
she had earned in the spring for robo servicing had bought
enough high-pro C rations to last eight months. The thought
of the tasteless wafers brought a humorless smile to her face.
They were nourishing, but they left an emptiness in her gut
that would not be satisfied with anything less than a real meal
from a fully programmed dispenser. Not only had this job
paid her rent, but as of this morning it would allow her to
buy the first real meal she had had in more than five months.
She dodged a group of humans and human-mutantsтАФor
H'Mu, as the Federation classed themтАФand triggered the
proximity light on the boost chute before she arrived. Being
a sensor with esper skills had its advantages. Where other
sensors had to manipulate fields by using their temple jacks,
Kiondili could mentally focus her biofields to activate a small
particle field. She could even control the strength of such a
fieldтАФas long as it was a local adjustment. Now, as she dove
toward the edge-lit hole in one of the dock's transport cy-
linders, she flexed the chute fields briefly. The boost chute's
gravity field went to zero; the boost field went to high. She
passed the chute opening and shot into free-grav, her black
hair streaming out behind her as she hit the first acceleration
pad hard. Rolling off her shoulder, she twisted her body into