"Stephen Kenson - Technobabel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kenson Stephen)

and sends shafts of colored light slanting into the room. The light suggests
that it is very early-or quite late-in the day. I wonder how long I have been
asleep. I felt like I could have slept for days in the alleyway, but I feel
well-rested now. The furniture and trappings of the room are all mismatched
and scavenged, but in good repair.
The door opens and a boy, no more than ten years old, looks in at me. He's
wearing coveralls and a T-shirt that look to have been patched a few times in
strategic worn-out spots. His hair is cropped almost military-short and his
face and hands are clean. There is a kind of awe in his eyes and he smiles
widely at me and seems pleased that I'm awake.
Just as I'm about to speak to him and ask where I am, he turns and runs off. I
toss aside the sheet and thin blanket and get myself out of bed and stretch.
My clothes are clean, neatly folded at the foot of the bed, and I start
pulling them on. I find my boots sticking out from under the bed and put those
on as well and lace them up. There's still no knowing if I might have to leave
this place quickly. I look around for the gun I took from Weizack, and I'm not
surprised to find it is not in the room. I can hardly blame my hosts for
relieving me of it. It might have been left behind in the alleyway, but it
wasn't likely that anyone who would bother to pick me up and bring me here
would have left something like a loaded gun lying around. My stomach rumbles
and I wonder again how long it's been since I last ate. I can't remember the
last time, though it feels like I haven't eaten in weeks. Maybe I haven't.
As if in answer to my thoughts, the boy comes back into the room carrying a
tray and in the company of an old man. I don't know how old, maybe fifty or
sixty. He looks like

someone who has always been old, someone who is hard to picture ever being
young. He's Asian, fine-boned like a bird, with long white hair, a neat little
beard, and a gentle smile that he gives when he sees me.
"You're awake. Good. I was worried about you." When he says it I know he means
it. I don't know quite how to respond, so I just nod and watch. He has a cloth
bag over his shoulder that looks quite full. He nods to the boy, who carries
the tray over to the small table beside the bed and sets it down. The older
man sends him out of the room with a pat on the back, then closes the door
behind him.
"When you turned up missing, I sent the others out to look for you, but it was
some time before we found you near the Combat Zone in that alley. It's a good
thing we did, before some of the other inhabitants of the Rox decided to take
what they would have seen as easy prey."
"They did," I say, speaking to him for the first time. "Some men took me from
the alley. I think they were body-snatchers, organleggers. There was a ghoul
at the place where they took me. I managed to escape and ran. I ended up in
the alley and must have passed out." The old man looks very grave and gives a
low "hmmm" sound deep in his throat as I speak.
"The Tamanous," he says with some distaste. "Ghouls and grave-robbers who
traffic in stolen body parts. They have never troubled us before this. I will
have to see to it that they do not think they can interfere with our sacred
sites. You are fortunate to have escaped from them intact." He gives a faint
smile tinged with irony. "Perhaps you should have been a warrior instead of a
mystic." A tantalizing smell reaches my nostrils, and the old man gestures