"Gregory Kern - Cap Kennedy 01 - Galaxy of the Lost" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kern Gregory)

two."

To offer was one thing, to suggest another. He moved his head and
looked at her as she sat framed against the sun. She had crouched to show
the double-curve of naked thighs, the flesh of her waist bunched a little
above the circle of her kilt. Nudity was common on Sartelle, but the
bareness of her body was more than compensated for by the painted mask
which was her face. Spirals of red and purple interspersed with lines of
silver and gold ran from forehead to shoulders. Crusted eyelids and lashes
adorned with tiny globules. Hair which bore a dozen gems, wreathed and
plaited with metallic strands. The normal garb of a hotel attendant.

But if the garb was normal her expression was not.

The paint disguised it, the mask turning her features into a
robot-blankness, but there was a slight tension about the eyes, a firmness
about the mouth which had no place if she were exactly what she seemed.
A dilettante, perhaps, a female guest intrigued and hoping to establish a
closer relationship? He decided against it; but if she were not a genuine
employee or a bored holidaymaker looking for a companion, she could
only be one other thing.

"The message," he snapped. "From whom?"

"Armat Chan."

The resident Terran operative on Sartelle and one, Kennedy thought
grimly, who had obviously inflated ideas of his own importance. Or
perhaps the girl had held plans of her own. To be able to report back that
he had refused to accept a message of prime urgency would conceivably
have enhanced her importance. Or Chan could have been testing
himтАФrumor had it the man was fond of such things. Not for the first time
Kennedy cursed the departmental rivalries which made life more difficult

Rising, he dusted ebon grains from the smooth musculature of legs and
torso. He caught the quick intake of breath from the group which had
been studying him, a barely repressed squeal.

"I told you! See how tall he is? And that chest!"

"You appear to have made a conquest," said the woman at his side. She
too had straightened and, tall though she was, her head rose barely above
his shoulder. "Not hard when you consider the opposition." She stared at
the rows of supine shapes, the men flabby for the most part, elderly,
paunches and skin dull and soft with overindulgence.

Flatly he said, "Your name?"

"Sharon Dale." The globules on her eyelashes caught the light in tiny
sparkles as she looked up at him. "You are interested?"