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

quite concealed her welcoming stash. Strange; most Galactics kept their bodies
hairless from the eyelashes down, and nearly all from the neck down, at least.
To do otherwise was to announce perversity-or the backward nature of one's
culture. He touched that soft, damp patch of fur and a little smile touched
his face. Marekallian Eks of Outreach positively reveled in backward cultures.
His interest lay, however, along more serious lines than the avoidance of bald
stash. He sought to bring new cultures into the interplanetary society of the
universe, and he considered that every race's birthright. Phoenix was the
second representative of an unknown sentient species, and Eks was not about to
let the Akil slip from his grasp. (He had no notion that Jonuta had no
intention of selling the Akil as a slave, and would not have cared to believe
it had he known.) A bumping sensation brought him to instant alertness and he
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withdrew his hands from the woman beside him. (Again she made a little sound,
and again she turned away, onto her side, drawing her legs up.) Eks smiled
faintly. He knew the vibration a starship made when it hard-docked at a space
station. Rolling gently off the bed, he eased his butt up and pulled on gray
tights. Into them he stuffed a deep-rust hued shirt of grixsilk. He drew 21 on
his utilitarian jacket of Panishi khaki. It was well supplied with a score or
so pockets that held items ranging from fifteen meters of coated monomolecular
cable to a combination ministopper/jangler. His own full-sized stopper hung
from the holster of the jacket's self-belt. Sealing up the jacket's meld, he
jumped lightly up and down to ensure that nothing rattled. Firm, he thought.
Not a sound. Eks slipped on leather boots and sealed their molecular bindings.
Poised to leave, he glanced around the cabin for anything he might have
forgotten. Ah-he plucked his wristcomm up from the center table. He took a
last look at the coiled, sleeping Verley 2197223SK of Sekhar. She had followed
him into the shrine tower of the Mother and her Lover-the gods of the
Protected planet Arepien. And had helped him make off with its most exquisite
artifacts. One was the Akil he called Phoenix. Verley had definitely been a
life-saver. In the course of a long life, he remembered, a wise man must be
willing to abandon his luggage many times. Clear ether, my jocko! He turned to
open the hatch. No sound disturbed the tunnel outside. Straining his hearing
to its limits, Eks waited long moments before sealing the hatch as silently as
he'd opened it. The soft leather boots moved as quietly as a whisper against
the plasteel deck. He heard them when he passed the second blowout pressure
seal. Kenowa had volunteered to take the Akil onstation. Jon-uta had only to
comm a holo of the beautiful alien to the first contact he'd picked. The price
demanded and agreed to would buy a planet. Not a large planet, but hardly an
asteroid, either. Kenowa wanted one last moment with Phoenix... The Akil
sensed her need and readily made his affir- 22 mation apparent. Walking with
him from the con to an empty cabin, she admired the growing size of the small
alien's slim, long slicer. As with the rest of his beautiful, sensual body,
his penis beckoned her with its promise of pleasure. "Makhseem," he
whispered. Kenowa smiled warmly. She'd heard him use the word often enough to
presume that it was the Akil word for "fornicate." (That makhseem was
infinitely more than fornication, she already knew-she had shared that