"Andrew J. Offutt - Spaceways 02 - Corundums Woman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Offutt Andrew J)

it!" "Correct, Captain Ota, both times. Consider. You are a respectable though
hardly likable merchant-ship's master, while it is telemetrically obvious that
I am a pariah, an unclean untouchable, a bloody vicious murdering pirate.
Ptui." All of them heard the tone of suave amusement as white suit pronounced
the 24 satanic litany. "You have no business with TZ, Captain Ota.
Obviously such an outlaw as I, however-" "You filthy rotten sisterslicer! I
need that! I need the income it will bring, the stells-" Ota was spluttering,
his face dark and eyes bulging. Yet he could not attack the pirate and it was
always safer to let such a flakier revile himself. Helpless, therefore, Ota
turned his rage on his crew. "You Saining bastards! You will never work again!
None of you! You-you mutineers! MU-TINY! I'll see you all minus your eyes!" He
spat the threat of that barbaric punishment for theft with such venom that had
he been a cobra they might have lost their eyes then and there. Tetsu looked
nervous unto fright. Suzuki stared grimly at her captain. She who knew about
tetrazom-base knew also some insouciance, some control. Prith said, "Captain,
Suki had absolutely nothing to do with-" "That cow!" Ota exploded. He was
obviously beyond reason and restraint-other than that of self-preservation,
for still he restrained himself from attacking the real villains. "So valuable
in her speciality she wouldn't even share a bit of my bunk now and again. No
no--you were all in on it! And you know that's what will be believed before
any board of inquiry, you rotten mutinous flarners! I'll see you all
eyeless!" "That," the white-suited pirate said quietly, calmly, "is a threat
that is most personally abhorrent to me, Ota, you cowardly venal little
swine." His thumb moved on the setting of his stopper and calmly, quietly, he
squeezed. Captain Ota made only the beginning of an outcry. There was, briefly
and horribly, the aroma of cooking. Then Ota was no longer present, save as
minuscule components. The odor was not pleasant. It never was, when a man was
fried by a microwave projector set on Three, and vaporized within seconds. The
pirate in the pale blue spacesuit had started 25 sharply, but said nothing
and made no further move. The others, seated in a forlorn little row on the
captain's bunk, resembled chastised students in a disciplinarian's school.
They stared. Perhaps Suzuki and Prithvi were trying to measure time and
distance, considering a jump at the shark before he turned his stopper on
them. Tetsu was beyond thinking. The white-suited pirate gestured to his
companions, who held stopper and cutter. Suyari's seated crew understood.
Roistering his weapon, the killer paced to the captain's bedside comm. He
buttoned it to life. "Record," he bade the comm, which he obviously knew was
linked to SIPACUM. A button flashed yellow then green and stayed green. At
last Suzuki said, "It . . . it's a visual acknowledgment. That flasher means
it is standing by to record." She wondered whether this strangest of faceless
men had a fully vocalized computer on his ship. Was he so successful, so
aesthetic? Had he conferred with a visual program before intersecting Suyari's
course? Who might such a man choose as personification of a mentor-counselor
program? He nodded and thanked her before speaking clearly into the comm. "I
have just fried Captain Ota, a swine who has been stealing from his crew and
who reviled his com-putrician in my presence for her refusal to spread for
him. I do not applaud his taste, but I do hers. The spaceways and this crew
are better by far with Captain Ota having joined his doubtless dishonorable
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