"Steve Perry - Matador 6 - Black Steel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Steven)

probably, that reminded him of his childhood. All of a moment, he felt like he was nine years old. He
shook the feeling. He had other things to worry about. Like:

What the fuck was this all about?

The port cools were apologetic as to how the would-be assassin had gotten past them. Sleel showed
them his ID cube and his permit for his weapons, but they were more interested in the their own loss of
face. How'd a fem with a fucking unsecured sword get into the passenger area?

Sleel on the other hand wanted to know why the woman had come at him. And how the still-
unconscious woman had taken four shocktox darts and kept coming. That was why the fem had been
smiling before she'd moved; she'd known the spetsdods wouldn't stop her. Maybe she hadn't known that
matadors were as adept with their bodies as their handguns. Or maybe she'd thought the sword made up
for it. Whatever, it made for a nasty surprise. Sleel remembered Dirisha saying something once about
some world where people worked with poison fish and had developed a kind of immunity to certain
spetsdod chems. Maybe that was it.

Fucking lot of maybes here, Sleel. Best you clear some of them up before they get you killed.

"You Sleel?" came a small voice.

Sleel looked down to see a little girl of about eight standing there. A port rat. He restrained himself from
pointing one of his spetsdods at her. "Yeah. So?"

"Got a message for you. Jersey Reason is waiting outside."

Jersey Reason? Here on the Big Island? And how did he know Sleel was here?

Questions, more questions. It was like being back in primary edcom, with the holographic teacher
yammering at you. Sleel flipped the little girl a five-stad coin. She snatched it from the air, grinned, and
took off.

Outside Sleel spotted the flitter, an armored rig with protected fans. Whoever had built the thing had
done a good job of it; somebody less adept than Steel probably wouldn't have immediately spotted the
spidersilk plate and denscris windows.

Sleel also recognized Jersey Reason, though he'd only met the man once and that almost a year past. The
old geep had suckered them with his defenses, though at the end Sleel had seen through the holoproj. He
looked pretty much the same as Sleel remembered, short, almost tiny, with thick white hair and a short
beard, also white. Too much light from various suns had damaged his skin and he was wrinkled and
tanned, crinkled smile lines framing his pale blue eyes. Reason stood next to the armored flitter, alone.



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"Sleek" he said. As it had before, the deepness of his voice came as a surprise.

"Reason."