"Steve Perry - Matador 5 - The 97th Step" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Steven)

new inducer, and it needed at least four new repellor grids. If prayer had any
validity, then that must be what was holding the flitter together, because Mwili
prayed every time he cranked the rattletrap up. Taking the ancient craft on the fly
was an invitation to accident, and a broken head or worse. This time, fortunately,
he'd only been half a meter up and cruising slowly when the engine shut off. He'd
raised dust and a few bruises, but both he and the flitter had survived fairly
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 Perry, Steve - The 97th Step


undamaged otherwise.

"Where did this happen?" his father finally said.

"At Three Rocks."

Mafuta looked in that general direction, but Mwili knew that even if his father
wore spookeyes and scopes, he'd never be able to see the flitter. It was twenty-six
kilometers to the rocks. Twenty-six dusty kilometers and four weary hours on
foot, by way of the only road leading to their farm. A more boring stretch of land
could hardly be devised; God must have put his mind to it, and only He knew
why.

"Did you leave the road? Strain the engine?"

"No, Baba. I went straight to the post and came straight home."

"Why did you not return to the post and call me?"

Mwili sighed. It was nearly twenty klicks from the rocks to the supply post. He
would have saved all of an hour on the call, and still had to walk homeтАФthe
supply warden didn't give anything away for free, and Mafuta Kalamu would
never have agreed to pay for his son to ride home, not in ten times ten thousand
years. That would have been sixty-five kilometers he would have had to walk, and
that made no sense at all. But he wouldn't say that to his father. Instead, he said, "I
thought it would be better to come home. The distance is nearly the same, and I
could get started quicker on the repairs."

"You brought the coil?"

Mwili reached into his gi and pulled the coil out. It was the size of a drink can,
wrapped in a greasy rag. "Yes, sir."

Grudgingly, Mafuta said, "That was good." But the faint praise vanished as he
suddenly came to the point that Mwili had feared the most: "ButтАФwhat of the

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 Perry, Steve - The 97th Step