"Andrew J. Offutt - Spaceways 08 - Under Twin Suns" - читать интересную книгу автора (Offutt Andrew J)

mildly suspicious. Medcheck was medcheck; scanners were scanners, and this round-faced little fel-low in the pale
green med-service smock was after all little more than a clerk, doing his job.
"Detectors just flicker a bit, to be honest, Captain," the medical scanner-tech said with notable politeness. "That's
all. But we'd really appreciate it if you'd in-dulge us, Captain."
She sighed at the imposition, and yet she almost smiled. Such a nice, almost apologetic fellow! "Think I may be
harboring a bug or two, hmm? Well, I'd hate to take it down onto Jorinne with me. Starting epidemics really isn't my
mission in life."
He made an embarrassed little gesture. "Ah, it's probably nothing, Captain. We keep the scanners pretty sensitive,
and sometimes I think they may be set too high. But . . . well, I hope you don't mind the inconvenience."
Nice of him, considering that there really wasn't any choice and both of them knew it. That was a part of why he
impressed her so. He didn't have to be so polite. His authority came from the Medical Director
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and penultimately the Station Supervisor-and ultimately the government down onplanet. He could have given her a
crisp "Go Strip and put in your two minutes in Decontam, Cap'm; looks like you're carrying a mi-crobe and all it
might do is wipe out Jorinne's entire population."
And she'd have to go through Decontam, or back to Satana and the hell away from Soljer, Jorinne, and this system.
Which was exactly the choice open to her now.
She felt good. All those Knorese gems so intricately set in gold and silver made her feel good. Not because she was
particularly fond of decorating herself with such gauds, but because of the wealth they promised.
Maybe it was worth all the hell on Cold Hell, since it would make her wealthy and thus truly independent. She was
crowding thirty now, and aware of it. Certainly six years of piracy had not made her anything approach-ing rich. Those
years had, on the other hand, kept her tense, lean unto skinniness; and kept threatening to prevent her from reaching
age thirty. And she hated tension, and decisions.
Therefore she smiled and nodded. Maybe all clerks weren't rude dummies, after all! Maybe.
"Right. No peekin', now!"
He seemed to take that seriously, with embarrass-ment. "Oh, no, Captain-"
 With a chuckle, Hellfire turned away. She passed the (medical) security woman lounging near the white door, and
went in. She entered a room that surrounded her on three sides with plastiles in oyster white, spotlessly agleam. The
atmosphere was a nice bland, faintly humid temp, carefully maintained for the comfort of spacefarers with a need to be
decontaminated.
She stripped.
Boots, tights, belt with bolstered stopper, tunic and underwear-all went into the pull-out bin. She closed it and
heard it click. Heard it whoosh, moving through the wall.
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She knew the clothing-and stopper-would pass through a decontaminating unit more powerful than the one she
must shortly experience. Her things would be waiting in the anteroom-or post-room-when she emerged into it.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the soundproofed door she had just passed through, the nice polite med
tech-scanner waved a hand at the medseccer. At the same time, he lifted the minicommunicator to his lips. The comm
had been handed him just two-and-a-half mins ago, with hurried instructions.
Now he spoke to the Soljer Securer on the other end of the commlink.
"All right, get to it. That skinny pirate bitch just went into the D-chamber, and she knows the drill. We can't delay.
Do your job and let us get back to ours."

With a glance at the dangling rings that were a legacy of her enslavement on Knor, Hellfire was opening the pale
green door. She entered the Decontam chamber.
(She still had not decided about those rings, which her "master," the late Torgex of Survival on Knor, had been
wont to decorate with dangling ice-pearls. Natu-rally she wanted the hateful things off and out. They were reminders
of an egregiously demeaning experience she wished to forget. Getting one of her shipboard companions to attempt to