"Mercedes Lackey - A Tail Of Two Skittys" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

TriStar had a reputation as being ruthless, and he'd heard from Erica that it
was justified. So how do you get rid of an entire crew of a spaceship and the
Terran Consul? And maybe the crews of the other two ships into the bargain?

Well, there was always one answer to that, especially on a newly-opened world.
Plague.

The chill threaded his backbone again as he realized just what a good answer
that was. These TriStar goons could use sickness as the excuse for why the
CatsEye people weren't in evidence. A rumor of plague might well drive the
other two ships offworld before they came down with it. The TriStar people
could even claim to be taking care of the Brightwing's crew.

Then, after a couple of weeks, they all succumb to the disease, the Terran
Consul with them. . . .

It was a story that would work, not only with the Terran authorities, but with
the Lacu'un. The Fence was a very effective barrier to help from the natives;
the Lacu'un would not cross it to find out the truth, even if they were
suspicious.

I have to get to a com set, he thought desperately. His own usefulness would
last only so long as it took them to trap SKitty and find some way of caging
her. No one else, so far as he knew, could hear her thoughts. All they needed
to do would be to catch her and ship her back to BioTech, with the message
that the designated handler was dead of plague and the cat had become
unmanageable. It wouldn't have been the first time.

A soft hiss made him look up, and he strangled a cry of mingled joy and
apprehension. It was SKitty! She was right outside the door, and she seemed to
be trying to do something with the tangle-field generator.

SKitty! he thought at her as hard as he could. SKitty, you have to get away
from here, they're trying to catch youтАФ There was no way SKitty was going to
be able to deal with those controls; they were deliberately made difficult to
handle, just precisely because shipscats were known to be curious. And how
could she know what complicated series of things to do to take down the field
anyway?

But SKitty ignored him, using her stubby raccoon-like hands on the controls of
the generator and hissing in frustration when the controls would not
cooperate.

Finally, with a muffled yowl of triumph, she managed to twist the dial into
the "off" position and the field went down. Dick was out the door in a moment,
but SKitty was uncharacteristically running off ahead of him instead of
waiting for him. Not that he minded! She was safer on the ground in case
someone spotted him and stunned him; she was small and quick, and if they
caught him again, she would still have a chance to hide and get away. But
there was something odd about her bounding run; as if her body was a little