"John Ringo - Sister Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ringo John)

table. In a display of vanity excessive even for his own species, this Darhel apparently traveled with his
own portrait. The silver-black fur would have been salt and pepper except for its characteristic metallic
luster. His fox ears, cocked forward aggressively, had been embellished with the lynx-tufts that were the
current fad in Darhel grooming. His cat-pupilled irises were a vivid, glowing greenтАФshe would be willing
to bet they had been digitally retouched. They glinted in the middle of the purple-veined whites of his
eyes. The most prominent feature, however, was row of sharp teeth, displayed in a near snarl. Again,
they had obviously been retouched to make the light appear to sparkle off their razor edges. He was
draped in some kind of cloth that was, no doubt, hideously expensive. His angular face combined with
the other features to make him look like a fatally charismatic cross between a fox and some sort of
malignant elf. Half a dozen Indowy body servants clustered in subservient postures around his feet.


Other than the gratuitous display of self-adoration, it was a stereotypical Darhel suite. A thin layer of
gold covered practically everything that could be gilded, worked in intricate patterns. Piles and piles of
cushions were covered in muted colors of an expensive Galactic fabric ten times softer than silk. Some of
those cushions were now graced with the small, green, furry forms of sleeping Indowy. One of them had
been unlucky enough to fall on the floor. It had curled up into a ball and she stepped over it as she
searched for the all-important, hideously expensive code keys that were the goal of her raid.


The drawer was one of several hidden in one of the false columns ornamenting the room. She assumed it
was the one with the expensive bio-lock worked into the hatch. Her buckley might have been able to
convince it she was the Darhel owner. Or it might not. Fortunately, this Darhel had neglected to consider
the hinges, which were delicate, of a Galactic material far too strong for most brute force, and exposed.
The screw holding one end of each pin took the normal Indowy hourglass head. She unscrewed the top
of her pen, selected the right size bit andтАФ


"Cally O'Neal, I see you." The soft voice behind her was soprano, but not nearly high enough to be
Indowy. The blond cat burglar whirled and froze in mid strike, staring at a thin girl in Indowy mentat's
robes, her brown hair pulled back in a tight bun . . .
"Michelle?" Cally asked, her eyes blinking rapidly in surprise.


Since Cally had been officially dead for over forty years, including as far as she had been aware to the
knowledge of her only sister, seeing the mentat was, to say the least, a bit of a shock. Especially in the
middle of an op.


"What the hell are you doing here?" Cally hissed. "And that Indowy greeting was in very poor taste, you
know. 'I see you' sounds like we're playing hide and seek."


"Is this a bad time?" Michelle could have been slightly miffed. In all that serenity, it was hard to tell.


"Hell yes this is a bad time!" Cally hissed. "I'm kind of in the middle of an op here. And could you please
keep your voice down!" Despite feeling totally surreal from the interruption, the under-dressed cat
burglar couldn't help drinking in the sight of her long-estranged sister. "WaitaminuteтАФyou knew I was
alive? How the hell did you get in here, anyway?" she asked.