"Alastair Reynolds - Chasm City" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Alastair)

We got out of the wheeler, both of us craning our necks to take in the bridge. I'd never seen
it before today-this was my first time in the Demilitarised Zone, let alone Nueva
Valparaiso-and it had looked absurdly large even when we'd been fifteen or twenty
kilometres out of town. Swan had been sinking towards the horizon, bloated and red except
for the hot glint near its heart, but there'd still been enough light to catch the bridge's thread
and occasionally pick out the tiny ascending and descending beads of elevators riding it to
and from space. Even then I'd wondered if we were too late-if Reivich had already made it
aboard one of the elevators-but Vasquez had assured us that the man we were hunting was
still in town, simplifying his web of assets on Sky's Edge and moving funds into long-term
accounts.

Dieterling strolled round to the back of our wheeler-with its overlapping armour segments
the mono-wheeled car looked like a rolled-up armadillo-and popped open a tiny luggage
compartment.
"Shit. Almost forgot the coats, bro."

"Actually, I was sort of hoping you would."

He threw me one. "Put it on and stop complaining."
I slipped on the coat, easing it over the layers of clothing I already wore. The coat hems
skimmed the street's puddles of muddy rainwater, but that was the way aristocrats liked to
wear them, as if daring others to tread on their coat-tails. Dieterling shrugged on his own
coat and began tapping through the patterning options embossed around the sleeve,
frowning in distaste at each sartorial offering. "No. No . . . No. Christ no. No again. And this
won't do either."

I reached over and thumbed one of the tabs. "There. You look stunning. Now shut up and
pass me the gun."

I'd already selected a shade of pearl for my own coat, a colour which I hoped would provide
a low-contrast background for the gun. Dieterling retrieved the little weapon from a jacket
pocket and offered it to me, just as if he were passing me a packet of cigarettes.

The gun was tiny and semi-translucent, a haze of tiny components visible beneath its
smooth, lucite surfaces.
It was a clockwork gun. It was made completely out of carbon-diamond, mostly-but with
some fullerenes for lubrication and energy-storage. There were no metals or explosives in
it; no circuitry. Only intricate levers and ratches, greased by fullerene spheres. It fired
spin-stabilised diamond flechettes, drawing its power from the relaxation of fullerene
springs coiled almost to breaking point. You wound it up with a key, like a clockwork
mouse. There were no aiming devices, stabilising systems or target acquisition aids.
None of which would matter.

I slipped the gun into my coat pocket, certain that none of the pedestrians had witnessed
the handover.

"I told you I'd sort you out with something tasty," Dieterling said.
"It'll do."

"Do? Tanner; you disappoint me. It's a thing of intense, evil beauty. I'm even thinking it might