"M. John Harrison - Light" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison John M)

air. Even their shadows had tusks. Their huge arms were blue with cold, but they were too fucking
hard-on to care about that. 'Hey,' they told one another, 'I wish I'd put less clothes on. You know?' The
entry pattern was this: they rushed the door of the twink parlour in twos, and the kiddies inside shot them
down from behind the coffins.
It was bedlam in there in quite a short time after they killed the Hi-Lite girl, with the flat fizzing arcs of
reaction bolts, the flicker of laser sights in the smoke, and a rich smell of human fluids. The front window
was out. Big smoking holes were in the walls. Two of the tanks had fallen off their trestles; the rest, alive
with shocking pink alarm graphics, were warming up fast. To Tig Vesicle it seemed that the whole issue
revolved around Tank Seven. The kids had given up on getting it open: but they weren't going to leave it
for anyone else. Seeing this early on, Vesicle had crawled as fir away from it as possible, and got in a
corner with his hands over his eyes, while cultivars rushed through the smoke, shouting, 'Hey, don't
bother to cover me!' and were picked off. The kids had a tactical advantage there: but down on
firepower, down on your luck, and they were being pushed back. They shrieked in their gluey argot.
They pulled new guns from beneath their rainslickeis. Looking over their shoulders for another way out,
they got shot: n the legs, or the spine, and they were soon in a condition the tailor couldn't cure. Things
looked bad, then two things happened:
Somebody hit Tank Seven with a short reaction shell.
And the Cray sisters appeared in the tank farm doorway, shaking their heads and reaching for the
pieces in their purses.

Chinese Ed and Rita Robinson were on the run somewhere in the weeds in back of the burning carwash.
Hanson was dead, Ed guessed, and the DA too, so there would be no help from that quarter. Otto Rank
had the high ground. He also had the 30.06 he had taken from Hogfat Wisconsin's kitchen after he
tortured and killed Hogfat's teenage daughter. It was the way he laid her out that was the missing piece of
the puzzle, Ed thought. I should have seen that, but I was too busy being the smart dick. Not seeing that
was going to cost two more lives, but at least one of them was only his own.
Ed's head got too far above the weeds. The flat crack-and-whip of the 30.06 cut across the drowsy
afternoon air. Some birds flew up from the river bank a quarter of a mile away.
Sixteen shots, Ed thought. Maybe he's low on ammo now.
Ed's ramrod Dodge was where he had left it parked, on the service road the other side of the lot. They
weren't going to make it that far. Rita was shot. Ed was shot too, but not as bad. On the up side, he had
a couple of shells left in one of the Colts. He ran harder, but this seemed to open Rita's wound.
'Hey, Ed,' she said. 'Put me down. Let's do it here.'
She laughed, but her face was grey and defeated.
'Jesus, Rita,' Ed said.
'I know. You're sorry. Well you shouldn't be, Ed. I got shot with you, which is more than most girls
get.' She tried to laugh again. 'Don't you want to make it with me in the weeds?'
'Rita . . . '
'I'm tired, Ed.'
She didn't say any more, and her expression didn't change. Eventually he put her down in the weeds
and began to cry. After a minute or two he shouted:
'Otto, you fucker!'
'Yo!' said Rank.
'She's dead.'
There was a silence. After a bit, Rank said:
'You want to come in?'
'She's dead, Otto. You're next.'
There was a laugh.
'If you come in тАФ ' Rank began, then seemed to be thinking. 'What is it I do?' he called. 'Hey, help me
out here, Ed. Oh, wait, no, got it: If you come in I see you get a fair trial.' He put a shot where he