"James Patrick Kelly - The Prisoner of Chillon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

Me, I felt as though I had swallowed a hardboiled egg, but then I'd
been space sick for days. I was just along for the story, the juice. According
to the newly formed International Law Exchange, all a spook journalist is
allowed to do is aim the microcam goggles and ask questions. If I helped
Django in any way, I would become an accessory and lose press immunity.
Infoline would have to disown me. But press immunity wouldn't do me much good
if someone decided to zap the wing. The First Amendment was a great shield,
but it didn't protect against reentry friction. I wanted to return to earth
with a ship around me; sensors showed that the outer skin was currently 1400^o
Celsius.
 "Much longer?" A dumb question since I already knew the answer. But
better than listening to the atmosphere scream as the wing bucked through
turbulence. I could feel myself losing it: I wanted to scream back.
"Twenty minutes. However it plays." Django lifted his headset. "Either
you'll be a plugging legend or air pollution." He stretched his arms over his
head and arched his back away from the seat. I could smell his sweat and
almost gagged. I just wasn't designed for more than three gravities a day.
"Hey, lighten up, Eyes. You're a big girl now. Shouldn't you be taking notes
or something?"
"The camera sees all." I tapped the left temple of the goggles and then
forced a grin that hurt my face. "Besides, it's not bloody likely I'll forget
this ride." I wasn't about to let Django play with me. He was too hypered on
fast-forwards to be scared.
It had been poor Yellowbaby who had introduced me to Django. I had
covered the Babe when he pulled the Peniplex job. He was a real all-nighter,
handsome as surgical plastic can make a man and an _artiste_ in bed. Handsome
-- but history. The last time I had seen him he was floating near the ceiling
of a decompressed cargo bay, an eighty-kilo hunk of flash-frozen boy toy. I
might have thrown up again if there had been anything left in my stomach.
"I copy, Basel Control." Yellowbaby's calm voice crackled across the
forward flight deck. "We're doing Mach nine point nine at fifty-seven thousand
meters. Looking good for touch at fourteen-twenty-two."
We had come out of reentry blackout. The approach program that
Yellowbaby had written, complete with voice interaction module, was in contact
with Basel/Mulhouse, our purported destination. As long as everything went
according to plan, the program would get us where we wanted to go. If anything
went wrong ... well, the Babe was supposed to have improvised if anything went
wrong.
"Let's blow out of here." Django heaved himself out of the seat and
swung down the ladder to the equipment bay. I followed. We pulled EV suits
from the lockers and struggled into them. I could feel the deck tilting as the
wing began a series of long, lazy S curves to slow our descent.
As Django unfastened his suit's weighty backpack he began to sing; his
voice sounded like gears being stripped. "I'm flying high, but I've got a
feeling I'm falling...." He quickly shucked the rest of the excess baggage:
comm and life-support systems, various umbilicals. "...falling for nobody else
but you."
"Would you shut the hell up?" I tossed the still camera from my suit
onto the pile.
"What's the matter?" There was a chemical edge to his giggle. "Don't