"Andrew J. Offutt - Spaceways 03 - Escape From Macho" - читать интересную книгу автора (Offutt Andrew J)

cap-tarn of Satana; Raunchy: long, lean, bisexual both by nature and genetic
heritage-and orange, truly orange of skin as all Jarps were; Syrians:
extremely female with hair dyed the color of golden wheat, definitely
attractive to both sexes but tough luck for males; 11 12 Crystal: medium
everything except-looks and bosom, which were extraordinary; and Janja. Janja
was, short, at once wiry and rounded, unnaturally pale among these of the
Galactic and Jarp race. Her hair was so blond as to be almost white, and her
eyes were like mist against an azure sky. Definitely female. Economically
rather than luxuriously constructed-and dangerous. The others did not know
that Janja, like the scarlet-haired hermaphrodite from Jarpi, was definitely
not Galactic. That is, despite appearances she was not quite human. Or
human-plus, perhaps. (Crystal and Syrians and Hellnre were dark of skin and
[natural] hair, of course; everyone was, except Aglayans. Hellfire's hair was
the color of brass or rather prass, dyed or celldyed. Janja was from Aglaya, a
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nontechnological and preyed-upon planet called a Protected World. It was
not.) Their sidearms were called stoppers. Slender tubes with three settings.
Number One jiggled the nerves and made the victim shuffle-dance. Number Two
jangled the nerves and robbed the victim of voluntary movement and
considerable thought. Number Three killed and cleaned up after itself. A
stopper was a squeeze-grip tube inside which two slim barrels lay snugly
parallel. Thumbing the setting to Three actuated the mechanism called Fry.
Nonbio-logical targets became very very hot. Biological ones, fauna of any
kind, were roasted, toasted, fried, consumed, reduced to calc: ash. The
technological innovation that had been miniaturized to become setting Three on
stoppers had been called a disintegrator at the time of its perfecting. Far
too dramatic a term, "disintegrator"! Oldrtime stuff, Buck Rogers stuff, for
those who remembered that silly fiction of an ancient century. A disintegrator
ray indeed! So it was just Three, or Fry, not the hideously graphic and
melodramatic "disintegrator ray." That's what it was, though. All five off
Satana wore belt-holstered stoppers. Hell- 13 fire's was on her right hip,
which was both lean and angular. This ruddy late evening on Mott-chindi she
wore a flippy little skirt on those hips, over figured lavender hose that were
tighter than skin but breathed. It amused her to dress so, sometimes,
particularly on a mostly-male world called Macho. It might prove enough
distraction to improve a business transaction. The miners of Mott-chindi were
paid in TMSMCo or CupreCo Mines scrip. That Macho scrip was good just about
anywhere along the spaceways. They came swooping through space to Mott-chindi
and docked upstairs, and after shuttlevator time and standard delays for ID
and clearance and arrangements, they walked onto the nowhere little
mostly-male planet. Buildings were dull, dumb, and utilitarian. Even the sun
was macho, sullen and ruddy and surly. And a little under a half-hour later
the mini-war started. The quintet off Satana was ambling along a quiet street
ridiculously called Skyflower Boulevard because they wanted to avoid the
crowded, noisy bright-light district. Skyflower Boulevard was a little wider
than what most cities on most planets called alleys. Somewhere close by some
maniac set off a bomb. Somewhere else a little farther off someone else tried