"Andrew J. Offutt - Spaceways 14 - Assignment Hellhole" - читать интересную книгу автора (Offutt Andrew J)

make a man wish for less of it. Her midnight hair went up on top of her head
to be held in place by a silver comb set with freshwater pearls from planet
Hellhole. It wasn't her best comb or her best decoration, but it was the first
gift Tilno had given her. 8 9 Just because I'm not going to marry the man
doesn't mean I have to pretend I don't like him at all! She glanced over at
the mirror she had decided to keep along with a few other of the house's
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original furnishings. Round, it was set in the center of a Mandelbrot-Meiku
mandala; fractal art in six colors and eleven hues. It always looked just on
the point of starting to spin. Alanni added the final touch to her own
decoration: bracelets of raw filigreed copper on both wrists. They came from
the top drawer of her jewelry box. (The contents of its lower drawer were
rather less ornamental. One bracelet there could hide a short knife, another
shurikens- the throwing stars almost deified on Terasaki. A twist of the
weighted blue stone on the third and it sprouted a length of monofilament
wire, with the stone as weight. Alanni could wrap it around someone's neck
with a practiced whip of her arm and wrist-and had. The delicate-looking
silver slave-style bracelet stiffened her wrist should she use old-fashioned
chemical-explosive weaponry with their heavy recoil.) (Sometimes she wondered
why she kept her combat jewelry. It seemed incredible that she would ever want
or need to use it again as other than decoration. Magic, maybe-so long as she
kept it, somehow the good hard policer she had been wouldn't disappear
completely into the rich soil of the farm.) By the time Alanni got down to the
pool, Tilno had not only arrived, he looked as if he'd grown roots in the
inflatable lounger. His boots and high-collared tunic were off and his shirt
was open halfway down his chest. One long-fingered hand curled around a
half-empty drinking plass of frosty blue. Now it bore real frost, too. Only
two things about Tilno weren't long and thin, and only one showed when he was
more or less fully dressed-the beard. He finger-combed a few drops of juice
out of that thick dark nest on his chin, set the plass down, and thrust
himself leggily to his feet to kiss Alanni. Then he stepped back and held her
admiringly at arm's length. "What's this? Queen of the Lost Colony?" Alanni
wrinkled her nose. "Tigere Sanyana I'm not." "Thank the Light! I don't care
how much gene-juggling 10 they do on those holomeller stashes. There's got to
be a line drawn somewhere as to just how much chest a woman can flaunt and
still stand up! You're on the right side of the line." A finger gently ran up
each proof of that fact to her bare shoulders. Alanni waited for the fingers
to glide back down again and continue their travels. Most of the time Tilno
was as sensitive to pheromones as a human could be. She had to be registering
on him, she thought. Instead he squeezed her shoulders and dropped his hands.
He picked up the pitcher and poured her glass full. "Sit down, 'Lanni. We have
problems." "What do you mean, we?" If that's his idea of an opening to a
proposal- "Fm in it because I volunteered to play messenger. We." "I won't
know whether that's a problem until I've heard the message." She took a
massive swig from her plass, knowing without caring that she looked as if she
was bracing herself for bad news. "Have you ever heard of the Invisible
Wisdom, 'Lanni?" Although that wasn't the question she had expected, it was