"Doris Piserchia - Star Rider" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piserchia Doris)

grinning.
I settled back, let my feet dangle at his sides and began picking my
teeth with the straw I always carried behind my ear. тАЬHunters all over the
place. Hitch a ride any time I want, Of course, if that happens, I get myself
another mount. If you canтАЩt trust a mount, you might as well commit
suicide. Damn things go loco once in a while and then itтАЩs the pasture for
them.тАЭ
тАЬDo that to me and IтАЩll never speak to you again.тАЭ
тАЬKind of tired of you. A lifetime of your bellyaching has been enough to
make me gag. WhatтАЩs the matter with you?тАЭ
тАЬTold you I was hungry.тАЭ
тАЬWe ate a while ago. You forget that planet we stopped at?тАЭ
тАЬNot that kind of hunger.тАЭ
I leaned on his neck and scowled. In some ways, Hinx had more jink
than I. Usually, a half-grown mount was frisky and dumb as a rock, but
Hinx was a serious thinker and could jink things far away.
When you jinked, you got a thing up close and swarmed all over it with
your mind. You didnтАЩt go after it to look it over; you dragged it close and
pawed it up one side and down the other. Naturally, you didnтАЩt pull the
actual thing to you, just an aura of its essence.
тАЬWeтАЩre nowhere near anything interesting,тАЭ I said. тАЬWhat the heck can
you be jinking?тАЭ
He sat so far back on his rump that my own backside almost touched
the ground. тАЬDonтАЩt know. A powerful hungerтАЩs building in me.тАЭ
тАЬWish youтАЩd quit dumping us in D so fast.тАЭ I spoke neither too gently
nor too harshly. He was a good mount and there was love between us. I
didnтАЩt know it then but the clawing longing IтАЩd had a minute ago had
gotten under his hide. He didnтАЩt know it, either. Time, place,
circumstance; those were all it took to make a miracle, or a hell of a mess.
Anyhow, I sat there and he sat there and suddenly the odd tilt of his
shaggy head made me feel creepy. I said, тАЬOne of these days IтАЩll be slow
getting my shield tight around me and the danged vacuum on one of these
rocksтАЩll pinch my whistle permanently.тАЭ
The nose of Hinx quivered. Straight up it jutted. Howl? Enough to give
me the shudders.
тАЬI gotta go, love,тАЭ he said, and I automatically gripped him tight. Bang,
D-2. That space-busting maniac under my seat took me like a babe and I
made up my mind to have him psyched if I ever got the chance. He needed
his brains cleaned out, needed to be put to pasturing and pleasuring on
one of those resort planets for blown mounts.
тАЬWhoa.тАЭ I said, but he paid me no mind. тАЬDamned nag,тАЭ I swore, and
with good reason. He was climbing a string of asteroids as if they were a
pile of rocks. My guts jiggled and my brains rattled as I hung on and
cussed him to galaxyтАЩs end and back. Bang, D-3, with his feet on an
asteroid. Bang, D-2, with the wind of nothing in my ears and the black of
perdition tearing at my throat. Bang, D-3, with his feet reaching for that
little piece of ground ahead, and the son of a clumsy bitch slipped and
threw us into D-2 so fast I thought I was a goner.
He finally hit one of those rocks solid, but did he stop and apologize to
me, who hung onto his mangy fur for dear life? He did not, just tippytoed