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

regrown due to this very same strike when I dueled with another who also walked the Masashi Flex. I
was fortunate to survive. It was not a lesson to be forgotten."

Josito said, "What of this opponent, Patron?"

Cierto's smile thinned. "I was defeated, but my opponent was weak and so allowed me to live. This was
a mistake-someday there will be another match."

Cierto's smile returned to full brightness. "Josito, since you have understood the lesson, you have
therefore earned the right to be next misionero. You are now Proyectil Sacro."

The young man flushed with sudden joy and pride. "Patron! You honor me!"

"Si. Do not dishonor our house by failure. As the Holy Missile, you have a great responsibility. Other
projectiles before you have failed to reach their target and since we have not heard from Karenita, we
must assume that she, too, has been unsuccessful."

"I will not fail, Patron!"

"Such is my hope."

When the students had filed out, Cierto wiped the perspiration from his body with a towel, cleaned the
oils of his hand from the grip of the sword, and wiped the blade with a small square of cotton victoria
cloth. Again, this was unnecessary, since the blood upon the blade had been but imaginary, a computer-
generated falsity without substance. Plus the ebony metal of the sword itself, the unique zhaverfrayshtol,
was virtually immune to staining. The blade had been folded over and hand-hammered in a manner
similar to the old Damascus and Japanese styles of hot forging; the secret formula for the black steel
thus worked had been handed down from Patron to Patron for centuries, not too long after mankind had
first left the Earth. The body of the slightly curved blade would bend almost seventy degrees without
breaking, it was as the finest spring steel, while the edge was tempered by the use of special ceramic

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clays that made it hard enough once it had been sharpened to score virtually anything less than diamond.
The secret had belonged to Cierto's house for two hundred and forty-five years.

A wave of emotion as black as the sword he cleaned came over Cierto. No longer was the formula the
secret of the House of Black Steel. Fifty-five years earlier the method had been stolen, in the time of
Cierto's grandfather. The old man had been only a few years away from his death, and it had fallen to his
son, Cierto's father, to find and punish the thieves. He had begun the task but had died before it had been
accomplished. It had taken Cierto nearly a decade to finish the search. A score of men and women had
been killed to uncover the names of the thieves who had dared trespass upon the House of Black Steel.
There had been five of them. Only one remained alive, and he was resourceful; but with luck, he would
soon join the others.

Oddly enough, there had been no mention of any usage of this particular kind of black steel anywhere in
the known galaxy. There were many ways to make metal dark, of course, from dyes to heat treating to
the addition of certain minerals, but no other that produced the weapon-grade material used in the casa's
swords. Cierto had a computerfax firm searching, and while the material was best suited for the making