"R. Garcia Y Robertson - Oxygen Rising" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robertson R Garcia Y)

armored Bug-mobiles, they waitedтАФbut nothing happened. Leo glanced at Derek, asking, "What's
taking the Greenies?"

Derek nodded toward the landing field, "They are waiting for lift-off."

"Lift-off," Leo arched an eyebrow. "Whatever for?"

"Women and children aboard that transport know the people in Pender's bunker," Derek explained.
"Greenies will not blast it until the transport lifts and the people aboard can't hear the bang or see the
flash."

Sure enough, the transport lifted from the field behind them, and while it was still a silver spark overhead,
climbing for altitude, an Osiris missile falling from orbit obliterated the bunker with a boom so big Derek
felt it through his boots, seeing the last of the glass towers shatter into diamond dust, while a mushroom
cloud rose up into the rain.
"How like the Greenies!" Leo took a long disgusted snort of oxygen. "They don't mind blasting Pender to
pieces, just not in front of the females." SuperCat females were the traditional hunters, the ones who
taught the cubs to kill, and were more likely to use fang and claw than the males, who favored automatic
weapons. Leo dropped Derek off at the shuttle bay, thanking him again, and pulling a bracelet from his
wrist, saying, "This is for your trouble, and the trouble you saved me."

Derek turned it over in his hands, recognizing Home Systems work, a thin gold and jade
communicator-cum-companion, voice activated, with a giga-bit memory, and enough microprogramming
to play music, translate Bug signals, and teach you Classic French cooking, all at the same time. Mercs
like Leo kept their personal savings as flashy but useful items that could be sold or bartered if need be.
Derek tried to turn it down, pointing out, "I'm obscenely well paid."

"But not by me," the SuperCat replied, leaping back aboard the armored Bug, and waving good-bye.
Leo apologized as he sealed the Bug's turret, "Have to go kill more humans!"

Derek disembarked on the Harmonia the huge colony ship used by the Greenies to settle Ares system.
Harmonia had once been a human ship, the colony-class Trinidad, used to settle the near EridaniтАФbut
colony ships almost never returned to the Home Systems, and were either cannibalized at their
destination, or kept heading outward under new owners. This one not only changed owners but peoples,
serving as a habitat in the Delta Eridani, then being bought by Greenies to colonize Ares system,
renamed Harmonia to match the planet. At the docking port where humans had once assembled to set
foot on new worlds, Derek saw naked Greenie kids gathered at huge view panels to watch the ships
coming up from the surface. You could see it on 3V, but kids liked to be there, seeing the passengers get
off. Especially Greenie kids. Greenies wanted to do everything first-hand, liking game-playing, group
participation, dancing to live music, and making love. To Greenies, 3V entertainment was an oxymoron,
dull as counting seams on the bulkhead.

Harmonia, ex-Trinidad, was back to being a habitat, temporary housing for thousands of Greenie
colonists, waiting for room on the slowly expanding surface settlements. Oxygen levels were rising rapidly
as super-plants spread over the surface, but Greenies were not Gekkos, bred for Mars-like
conditionsтАФGreenies needed air as much as humans, otherwise they would not have come to Harmonia.
Right now a lot of them didn't have much to do, which made Greenies restless. Kids were not the only
ones who came to see the shuttle unload. Dressed in skimpy swaths of fabric and ready smiles, a pair of
young Greenie women were eyeing the incoming passengers, looking for excitement. Seeing Derek, the
taller of them stood up on jade bejeweled toes and called out, "Hey, human, ever had a Greenie?"