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

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pronoun "it," always) had not been affected by the Knormen's lipith; chemical enslaver.
Hellfire was stuck with the knowledge that she had engaged in a lot of heterosexual activity, a lot of it oral. Enforced
and yet seemingly voluntary of course, be-cause of the drug. She had thought about it and thought about it; she had
spent a lot of time alone in her cabin, after Knor.
At last, on the third day in space, heading for the Payne-Humason system and Jorinne, she had decided to try an
experiment.
An astonished Trafalgar Cuw had agreed to help. That is to say, to participate in heterosexuality with her, in the
privacy of her cabin with its great big bed. He had not, understandably, seemed all that eager.
Hellfire wasn't eager, either. She just wanted to find out something, and thought she had to.
It didn't work. They both tried. No. Men were not her thing.
Strangely, rather than anger and recriminations and guilt, there had been conversation. Hours of it, while the others
onboard had assumed-astounded-that the oddest of odd couples was setting lovemaking records.
They weren't. They were communicating, genuinely communicating, in an altogether different way. They were
talking. And now she and Trafalgar Cuw were friends. They had a bond. Hellfire trusted him.
Maybe he understood the magnitude of that and maybe he didn't. Maybe he couldn't truly appreciate it; the point
was that Hellfire trusted no one, because she had never felt that she could. That included even Quindy, more
important to Satana than Hellfire and with whom Hellfire had a sometimes sadomasochistic relationship.
After that, the atmosphere on spacer Satana had been pretty darned nice. Hellfire could not exactly be de-scribed
as a different person, but she was different.
She hadn't minded a bit the fact that Quindy and Trafalgar were definitely slicing a piece of cake now
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and then. Hellfire thought enough of Trafalgar-Traf, now, to her-that she hadn't left any marks on Quindy, who had
been her Mate and her mate for several years.
And now they were on Jorinne's docking station at last, and soon . . . but right now she frowned, for it occurred to
her that she was not at all uncomfortable. The temp remained a normal, controlled warmth com-fortable to naked
humans.
The opening of the door behind her coincided per-fectly with the opening of the one before her, which meant the
two fully dressed individuals had coordinated their entry by commlink. Their entry was an attack.
Trap!
Soljer Security Sergeant Cosi's hastily devised plan was a clever one. Get the very dangerous Captain Hellfire
disarmed, naked, unsuspecting, and thus totally vulner-able. That way there was absolutely certainty that she could
be taken with no loss of life, something she was good at bringing about.
Cosi had no way of knowing that Hellfire would be particularly susceptible to such a ploy. Despite all her bathing
on Satana-a constant compulsive attempt to purge herself of Knor and Knormen-Hellfire had after all just as
constantly been exposed to the two stiglul Trafalgar had liberated from Survival's version of a lab, and to the two
Knorese allies they had picked up. One of each sex.
Thus Hellfire found it easy to believe that she might be carrying an exotic bug.
In her wealth of (dyed, at the sub-follicle level) brassy hair, perhaps. (The hair on her head; below the eyelashes
she, like most Galactics of her era, was abso-lutely hairless.) Thus Cosi's plan was far more logical and brilliant than
the nervous SolSec sergeant thought.
It was just that there was an aspect of Hellfire that neither Cosi nor the two fully clothed SolSeccers-one the
MedSec- who burst in on the entirely naked and
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terribly, almost ridiculously vulnerable-looking pirate took into account.
That was Hellfire's extreme competence at violence and defense. With her, it took the form of offense more often
than not.
She saw the door open two meters away, directly before her. She saw the security uniform and recog-nized it. She
saw the empty hands just as she heard the door behind her. She whirled, saw the MedSec, and "instinctively" knew
that she was the lesser foe. Hellfire wheeled and charged her. Naked.