"Huff, Tanya - What Ho, Magic!" - читать интересную книгу автора (Huff Tanya)

"As I said, Your Magnificence, a pity."
The larger Immortal carried Erik, kicking and screaming, from the room. As the door hissed shut, the Immortal appeared to be getting the worse part of the deal.
"Actually, I hope persuasion will be unnecessary." Gripe thrust his hand forward. "Just tell me where I can find the rest of these." On his palm lay a red crystal that pulsed with light. As it picked up more heat from Gripe's hand, it grew brighter until it looked about to burst into flame.
Kelly reached into her belt pouch. Empty.
"Yes, it's yours," agreed Gripe. "Until I found this, I wondered why you dared to return to this section of space, considering what happened the last time." He rubbed the crystal softly with his thumb. It flared. "A Susumu crystal, a perfect lattice. Too perfect for a ship's drive where only mass amplification is necessary. This is a precision amplifier. For energy weapons. Carrying even a dozen of these would make the risk worthwhile."
"I was carrying circuit boards for the gravity field of Vagna. They had no return contract. That's not cost efficient, so I dropped in on Gaby to pick up a cargo. I'm licensed to carry arms. The rock is a spare." Kelly bit off the words, her tone one she kept for minor customs officials and other bureaucratic time-wasters.
"I don't believe you." Gripe flipped the now uncomfortably hot crystal into his own pouch. "I want the rest of the rocks, and I haven't the time to take your ship apart piece by pieceЕ"
"Еbefore the Atabeg arrives." Kelly finished his sentence and managed a grin. So that was why he hadn't taken them to the Citadel; official interrogations were recorded. "Setting up a retirement fund?"
Gripe's smile showed teeth right back to the molars. "I suggest you talk."
Kelly made a rude suggestion in return.
The company commander sighed. "Have it your way, then."
The black wand hummed, a thin beam of energy came from one end, and Kelly screamed.
When Kelly regained consciousness for the second time that day, she was alone in the vault. She struggled to her hands and knees, paused, and spewed glreenish yellow bile all over the floor. Eyes watering and teeth clenched against continuous spasms of painful retching, she dragged herself up onto her feet, swayed, and nearly fell.
She concentrated on breathing for a moment. And then another moment. When she finally seemed able to tell up from down, she forced her arms above her head and pushed her fingers along the ceiling seam until they snagged on the hidden catch. When the cover flipped open, she clutched at a wire, took a step backward, and collapsed. The wire pulled free. The door panel slid open. She stared up at it in surprise. "This must be my lucky day."
She spat to clear her mouth of blood and acid, then lurched to freedom.
The heavy footsteps of the Immortals indicated areas to avoid and she staggered unopposed downward and deeper into the building, heading for one of Gaby's numerous back doors. In a dead-end corridor, she fell to her knees before a lurid mosaic and began pushing at the bottom row of tiles. It took her three tries to get the sequence right, but finally a section of the floor behind her lifted up on silent hinges.
Gagging, she swung her legs into the hole. "It would have to lead into the sewers." She slid over the edge and disappeared. The floor section snapped back into place.
Moments later it lifted again and Kelly heaved herself up into the hall.
"Damn that kid anyway."
"We'll reach Elite at 2100 hours, Most Exalted. Have you any orders?"
"I want that boy," the Atabeg growled without looking up from the sharpening of an antique skinning knife. "I want him brought to this ship where I will personally see that the job of removing him is not botched again."
The aide inclined his head in understanding and began to back from the room. At the door, he paused and dropped to his knees. "Most Exalted, if one who is nothing may presume, have you considered that the Shahinshah, your brother, may make an attempt on the life of your son?"
"Of course, I've considered it, you idiot!" the Atabeg snapped. "Even now, my son and a trusted pilot speed out of my brother's reach." He tested the point of the knife against his thumb and smiled at the burgundy bead. "My son is safe, but his son is mine."
Gripe had appropriated Gaby's office for his own and looked as though he belonged behind the satiny rinzewood desk that dominated the room. Erik, on the other hand, appeared sadly out of place amid the lush wall hangings and erotic sculptures.
"If you hurt me," Erik sneered, turning from a thoroughly educational study of the room's artwork, "Kelly'll skin you for a rug."
Gripe smiled almost fondly at the boy. "Don't be ridiculous, Your Magnificence."
Erik bridled at his tone. "Kelly's the bravest, strongest, best pilot in the galaxy, and any minute now she'll break in here and blast you in zillions of little pieces!"
Rising, Gripe leaned over the desk and said with bored precision, "Your Kelly is the end product of a society founded by hucksters and con men. She's no more than a common merchant, a scruffy trader, a peddler of lies. You'd best forget about her help, boy."
"Oh yeah? Kelly and Val and me could take out your whole fleet!"
"Val?" Gripe's eyes narrowed.
"Yeah, Val. She's Kelly's ship and she's almost as good as Kelly andЕ"
"Val is the ship?"
"That's what I just said. Stop interrupting me!"
"My apologies, Your Magnificence." Gripe smiled and came around the desk. If Val was the woman's ship, it explained a great deal of the nonsense she'd babbled when she broke. He opened his mouth to call for the guards, but never got the chance as the chair he'd just vacated crashed down across the back of his head.
"Kelly!" Erik doVe around the desk and flung himself on her. He flung himself off her almost as fast. "You smell terrible."
"Yeah, well, it's been a trying sort of day." After retrieving her own weapon from the desk, she rolled Gripe over and pulled his sidearm free. "Here, brat, catch. Let's see if you shoot as straight at other people as you shoot at me."
Erik deftly fielded the gun out of the air, flicked off the safety, and checked the charge. He slipped his finger over the trigger guard in a businesslike manner and looked curiously at his rescuer. "Now what?"
"Now, we leave." She lifted a tapestry away from the wall. "Come on."
"Oh, wow! A secret passageway!" Erik sighed with satisfaction. "You smugglers know about the neatest stuff."
"I'm getting tired of telling you this, kid, I am not a smuggler." Kelly leaned down and retrieved her crystal from Gripe's belt pouch. Rubbing it to a searing radiance, she grinned. "At least not usually."
"And so I said to her, 'If you went to all this trouble to find me, the least I can do isЕ' Say, Leo, are you listening to me?"
The pilot rolled his eyes and made a minute adjustment in the ship's gravitational field. "Yeah, Exalted One, I'm listening."
"Good." The Atabeg's son settled deeper into his couch. "So I said, The least I can do is show my appreciation,' and she saidЕLeo, what are you doing with that gun?"
"Nothing personal, Exalted One," Leo told him, thumbing off the safety, "but I'm going to kill you."
"But father pays you to protect me," Darvish protested.
Leo smiled. "Someone topped his price." His finger tightened as Darvish dove for him. The shot went wild, destroying the communications board. Darvish's knee came down on the Susumu controls and the small ship leapt forward out of real space. The violent jerk flung the older man into his intended victim's arms and then flung them both to the floor.
In the cramped quarters of the control room, the fight ended quickly.
Darvish stood, tossed the gun onto an acceleration couch, and studied the ship's controls. The communications board was a smoking ruin; he couldn't call for help.
"Too many buttons," he sighed and pushed one he vaguely remembered as being important.
The Susumu drive shut down, and Darvish looked out at a pattern of stars he couldn't remember ever seeing before.