"Paul J. McAuley - Dead Man Walking" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mcauley Paul J)

anyone who wants some killing done, and earn plenty of money.тАЭ
тАЬItтАЩs a nice dream,тАЭ I said, тАЬbut it will never come true.тАЭ
тАЬWhy shouldnтАЩt I profit from what I was made to do?тАЭ
тАЬIтАЩve lived amongst people for more than a decade. Perhaps I donтАЩt know them as well
as I should, but I do know that they are very afraid of us. Not because weтАЩre different,
but because weтАЩre so very much like a part of them they donтАЩt want to acknowledge.
Because weтАЩre the dark side of their nature. IтАЩve survived this long only because I
have been very careful to hide what I really am. I can teach you how to do that, if
youтАЩll let me.тАЭ
тАЬIt doesnтАЩt sound like much of a life to me,тАЭ the assassin said.
тАЬDonтАЩt you like being Debra Thorn?тАЭ I said.
And at the same moment, I kicked off the ground, hoping that by revealing that I
knew who she was IтАЩd distracted and confused her, and won a momentтАЩs grace.
In ArielтАЩs microgravity, my standing jump took me high above the assassinтАЩs head,
up and over the edge of the ridge. As I flew up, I discharged the taser dart IтАЩd sewn
into the palm of one of my pressure suitтАЩs gloves, and the electrical charge stored in its
super-conducting loop shorted out every thread of myoelectric plastic that bound my
arms. I shrugged off the net as I came down and kicked off again, bounding along the
ridge in headlong flight toward the bulging face of the cliff wall and a narrow chimney
pinched between two folds of black, rock-hard ice.
I was halfway there when a kinetic round struck my left leg with tremendous force
and broke my thigh. I tumbled over hummocked ice and caught hold of a low pinnacle
just before I went over the edge of the ridge. The assassinтАЩs triumphant shout was a
blare of electronic noise in my ears; because she was using the line-of-sight
walkie-talkie I knew that she was almost on me. I pushed up at once and scuttled
toward the chimney like a crippled ape. I had almost reached my goal when a second
kinetic round shattered my right knee. My suit was ruptured at the point of impact,
and I felt a freezing pain as the smart fabric constricted as tightly as a tourniquet, but
I was not finished. The impact of the kinetic round had knocked me head over heels
into a field of fallen ice-blocks, within striking distance of the chimney. As I
half-crawled, half-swam toward it, a third round took off the top of a pitted block that
might have fallen from the cliffs a billion years ago, and then I was inside the
chimney, and started to climb.
The assassin had no experience of freestyle climbing. Despite my injuries I soon
outdistanced her. The chimney gave out after half a kilometer, and I had no choice
but to continue to climb the naked iceface. Less than a minute later, the assassin
reached the end of the chimney and fired a kinetic round that smashed into the cliff a
little way above me. I flattened against the iceface as a huge chunk dropped past me
with dreamy slowness, then powered straight through the expanding cloud of debris,
pebbles and icegrains briefly rattling on my helmet, and flopped over the edge of a
narrow setback.
My left leg bent in the middle of my thigh and hurt horribly; my right leg was numb
below the knee and a thick crust of blood had frozen solid at the joint. But I had no
time to tend my wounds. I sat up and ripped out the hose of the water recycling system
as the assassin shot above the edge of the cliff in a graceful arc, taser in one hand, rail
gun in the other. I twisted the valve, hit her with a high-pressure spray of water that
struck her visor and instantly froze. I pushed off the ground with both hands (a kinetic
round slammed into the dusty ice where IтАЩd just been), collided with her in midair,
clamped my glove over the diagnostic port of her backpack, and discharged my second
taser dart.