"Andrew J. Offutt - Spaceways 17 - The Carnadyne Horde" - читать интересную книгу автора (Offutt Andrew J)

beings." Jonuta smiled wanly. His coal-sack eyes glimmered with feigned
menace. "I'll take'-as my forty per cent for saving you from TGW-the Akil.
Period. I won't even touch your loot." "Loot! I was nearly killed removing
those barbarous relics of Arepien's superstitions." He looked genuinely hurt-
as genuine as he could improvise. "I've brainbdosted enough of them that
they'll be spacefarers in a few decades, if they exert themselves. They don't
need their old gods now." The Outreacher slid an arm protectively around the
Akil. "I insist that I keep Phoenix. I'm the sentenologist, not you. I'll keep
my bargain with you, Jonuta. You may have the full thirty per cent of what you
call my 'loot.'" Jonuta leaned against the first mate's chair to his left.
"Hear that, Kenny?" he said to the woman sitting there. The chair rotated. In
it sat a voluptuous woman with a large, more than attractive face and skin the
hue of burnished bronze. She wore a truly lovely and obviously expensive
sweater the color of champagne, with very full raglan sleeves decorated from
collar to cuff by a braided plait of its own material. It bloused over her
tight-hipped, tight-crotched but loose-legged pants, which were burnished
burnt orange suede. The sweater was cut lavishly, clear down to here, and the
close-pressed cleavage made her look as if she was smuggling watermelons. She
looked blandly at Marekallian Eks and up at her man, and nodded. 19 Jonuta
looked back at Eks. "I'm the slaver here. I'm the one with the contacts and
the knowledge to unload walking cargo right past watching security people. You
only know how to fence artifacts." "You're skipping one vital point,
Jonuta." "Which is?" Marekallian Eks walked over to the con and looked
squarely into Kislar Jonuta's dark, dark eyes. "Phoenix is a living, thinking
being that I found, freed, and took responsibility for. I'm not going to let
you enslave him the same way TGO enslaves the worlds of the
space-ways!" Jonuta maintained a bland gaze and permitted himself a wry smile.
This poor flainer's obsession with fighting TGO is going to fob his thinking a
little too much one of these days. Booda's eyeballs, he isn't even looking
down into Kenowa's cleavage-canyon! "We've been fragged by a lot of action
recently," the devilishly handsome master of Coronet said equably. "Some
uninterrupted sleep will put us both in better mind to discuss this." He
smiled and spread his hands placatingly. To the great surprise of Verley of
Sekhar, Marekallian Eks flipped his fingers in the spacefarer's equivalent of
a shrug and said, "You're right. We're all on edge, Captain." He stretched his
arms and stifled a yawn. "I think a few hours of horizontal meditation will
work wonders." And that was about as transparent as your suggestion,
Captain-san, he mused without bitterness. Now we'll see who corks whom, you
smiling clone bastard! Eks spent the "night" portion of the spacer's sleep
cycle wide awake. Verley lay on the amorphous bed beside him, naked and
relaxed, partly curled and wearing a disgustingly pleasant expression. She
breathed regularly, asleep in a warm, post- 20 lovemaking dreamworld. Well
stroked and well fucked, Marekallian very well knew. The scent of their
lovemaking titillated his nostrils still. She twitched, sighed, turned to lie
on her back. Naked and exposed with her emphatically straight pubic hair all
tangled and still damp. Without thinking about it Marekallian reached over to
cup and squeeze a bare, softly relaxed breast-she made a happy sighing noise
in her sleep-and gazed at the black grove between the tops of her thighs. It