"Steve Perry - Matador 01 - The Man Who Never Missed" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Steven)

Bork shook his head and said, "You know how Sleel is, he thinks God created
him personally to show the galaxy how to use a cock."
"He caught another exotic kind of veedee?"
"Not this time. HeтАФuhтАФbet one of the girls he could outlast her."
Khadaji shook his head. "Even full of Android to the eyes he couldn't
manage that. Who'd he bet?"
"Uh... I'm not supposed to... ah, hell, it was Sister Clamp."
Khadaji laughed and shook his head again. "Not really?"
"Yessir. Really."
"I would have liked to see thatтАФafter an hour or two. What's he being
treated for, blisters? Or exhaustion?"
"Sister says it's something called flea-bite-us."
"Phlebitis?"
"Yessir. She says it's irritated blood vessels, an inflammation of the veins.
In hisтАФahтАФdick."
"Is Sister a medic?"
"She says she used to be a doctor, but even if she wasn't, she'd seen enough
cases of this to know what it was." Khadaji laughed again. "I'll bet she has.
Poor Sleel.
Maybe he learned something."
 "I don't think so, Boss. He's talking about a rematch." "Let me know if it
happens, Bork. I'll bet my money on Sister."
The big man grinned. "Yessir, me too."
The octagon was about three-quarters full, early morning being the
slackest period, but there were still almost two hundred men and women
perched on the stools, smoking or drinking or wrapped in the grip of some
other rec-chem. It could be noon or midnight, from the artificial lighting; it
always looked the same in the octagon.
Khadaji looked at the scene with some fondness. As pubs went, this was
one of the better ones he'd worked inтАФand he'd been in no small number. It
would not be too hard to see himself growing old here, serving the troopers,
being well thought of by the military and locals, playing this simple game.
He shook his head. No. It was a nice fantasy, but that's all it was and he knew
it. It was temporary, and he was better off keeping short-timer's attitude
about it. There were some good people here, a lot of them, and he would
miss them, but this wasn't his karmic destiny.
Lojtnant Subru entered the octagon from the front and strode across the
room toward the dispensing window. He was a man in a hurry.
Khadaji walked toward the window, so that by the time Subru had bought
and collected his flickstick, the owner of the Jade Flower was standing next to
him.
"Something, Lojt?"
Subru scratched the end of the flickstick along the seam of his creased
uniform pants. The tip flared, then faded to a glowing dot. He stuck the
flickstick to his lips and drew in a deep breath of the fragrant smoke. He held
the blast for a second, then began to speak. Dark purple smoke emerged from
his mouth with the words. "A major attack, Emile. The Scum hit a T-plex last
night. My T-plex. They got the guards and then hit the C.O. herself." He took
another hit from the stick. "I could have been there. If they'd come a day
earlier, I would have been sitting on the O.O.D. desk my-fucking-self."