"Jacquelyn Hooper - Home On The Range" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hooper Jacquelyn)

"You're an asshole," she said, giving the shotgun to Chris. Then she left the
clearing.

"The hellion want women," Paladin said. He put the flask in his pocket, lifted
the shotgun. He aimed it at Chris, before aiming it toward the trees. "Tune to
their emotions. Don't matter how much sniper and covert duty they pull."

Three days later, Chris lay hidden in a field of grain, dressed in gold and
bone-colored fatigues. His skin itched from the grasses and mites that had
gotten into his clothing. The air was hot and dry. He thought he would choke
from the overpowering stench of wheat, and the chemically treated manure that
kept it growing.

Paladin was a few meters away, or a few millimeters away. Chris didn't know. He
had not heard him on his earplug in over an hour.

I'm moving, he thought, but remained still.

His chest itched the most. He thought about the scar there, from the heart
surgeries he had as a child to repair defective valves. He used to wish he could
scratch it away; the Air Corps would not accept anyone with heart defects.
Without the scar, he could have been signed up, like Rae, out in space, out
anywhere but here.

He was meant to fly. He knew it every time he woke in the morning, staring at
the new sky.

And reminded himself of it, when he woke from nightmares where the sky was
Paladin's face, and he stood over him, an atmostat-shaped stake and mallet in
hand.

Son of a hitch, he thought, closing his eyes. He remembered the man's first
reaction to Rae. Ev the dispatcher had finally given them a dream partnership.
She was never late, always ready with the right equipment for the next stretch
of the job. New river hired her the moment she was honorably discharged, and
paid her as much as they paid Paladin, whose price was sky.

She did know her job. She knew Paladin's job. No matter what weapon she held,
she never missed what she aimed at. She told him once how she planned to settle
in the Aurora Borealis Territory, across New River's river, when the territory
was cleared. She wanted to work there as ranger.
So if she knew her job, maybe he didn't hate her, Chris thought. Maybe he wanted
her. He had never seen Paladin with a woman, though women approached him. They
would whither away under his stare, like roses in the cross beam of a laser
eradicator.

Rae did not whither. And Chris knew that Paladin was technically a widower. He
had been a farmer on another Cynataka colony before natives massacred his family
and carried off his wife, or she ran off, one or the other.