"Andrew J. Offutt - Spaceways 16 - The Planet Murderer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Offutt Andrew J)

before the lift. He tilted back his battered, helmet-like headgear, which was
visored both fore and aft and ridged on top. Pearl stared. His hair was
lavender! Just then he turned, and she was better able to see his face. A
clean-cut, strong-boned, friendly face with mirth-crinkles about the mouth and
at the corners of the eyes. Those eyes also showed a certain wariness, along
with alert intelligence and wit. So he's purple, she mused. He's also tall,
just beauti- 1 2 fully built, and good-lookin'! What could the Handsome Man
have against this fr-this unique stranger! But that was dead-end thinking of a
kind Pearl couldn't afford. Not if she was to escape this Musla-cursed planet
Croz, hemorrhoidal anus of the universe, and get %ack to comfort and sensual
excitement on Thebanis, in her beloved city of Raunch.* In that same moment
the Purple Man clapped his hardhat back on. (Pearl found it easier to think
about men in terms of labels rather than names. Most of her contacts with them
were brief and they often preferred anonymity anyhow.) He stepped onto the
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lift and off Pearl's monitor. She rose hastily and tossed aside her cloak.
She'd spent her last cred for it, after that swinish slaver Vettering had
dumped her here. After all, she could hardly go out on the streets clad only
in skirt and red strap-titser. It still irked her, the way that smirky little
Saipese clerk had fobbed her. "Rahman green," the snip had called it. That had
sounded delightfully exotic; classy. Besides, it was the only cloak Pearl had
the price of. Only later had she discovered that once again her taste-or lack
of it-had betrayed her. When a bust in The Oddford had referred to the cloak
in none-too-sly disparagement as "vomit green," the space-farers at the table
with her had collapsed in guffaws. Certainly it was not the thing to wear on a
pickup as vital to her as this one. The abbreviated strap-titser-a Thebanian
outer bra consisting mainly of straps-was a better ploy for sure. She wished
only that she had more jiggle-flesh to bulge between the straps. That damned
Akima Mars series had made a warhead-lover of practically every male along the
spaceways! This was hardly the time to be fretting about her figure. She had
to get down below, and fast. If some other hust should decide to dig her claws
into that strange stranger . . . ! That was a chilling thought that sent
Pearl's hands rushing up to check her tired old Terasaki coil and ginger-check
her dimple-scars. With a prayer that she hadn't * Where, in the Loophole Bar,
we first met Pearl, along with her friend Pacy as well as Shieda and
Vettering, in Spaceways #2, Corundum1's Woman. 3 chewed off her cerulean
lipstain in her nervousness, she stepped out of her pleasure-bowl and onto the
lift. It dropped. Her stomach quivered as she was whisked down to the lowest
level. Wobbling queasily, she stepped out into the Labyrinth's irradialited
dimness and tinkling Bergal sound. Having solid floor under her didn't help
her nausea much, here. That was the trouble with the Labyrinth. The reason it
had deteriorated from an outlander's dream of a plush luxury entertainment
center to a shabby, sleazy bar in Croz's depths. The techs said the issue was
something called synesthesia, an effect that somehow translated vital stims
into sounds and vice versa. In the process it also made too many people's
stomachs churn in what amounted to seasickness. It was not an effect to
encourage drinking. (The elaborate explanations that it was due to subliminal