"Spider Robinson - Starmind" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Spider)

HIGH-ORBIT HIT MAN

Desperate to stop the assassin, Jay left the tech hole at full thruster power. As he came around the curve
he saw the guards he had passed moments earlier, drifting with the air-currents. He wanted to decelerate
to a stop and peer cautiously into the tunnel before entering itтАФbut was traveling so fast he'd have had to
overshoot it and beat back, and he didn't have time. Instead he threw himself into a power turn and
rocketed right into it at max acceleration.

That probably saved his life. The assassin was still in the tunnel, waiting to scrag Jay the moment his head
showed. But Jay arrived like a right hook, smashing solidly into him before he could fire.

The assassin was a very good shot. But Jay was a very good dancerтАФand fortunately the gun was a
pulse job rather than a continuous-beam laser.

He twisted, arched, feinted, leaped, contracted, and bolts of shining death missed him by centimeters.
But Jay could not hope to close; it was all he could do to stay alive. And any second his luck must run
out.
 He had time to realize that he was going to die protecting people he did not like or even respect, and
then the tunnel had a blowout. A jagged hole appeared in its wall with aphuff , the shriek of escaping air
tore at their ears, and pressure began to drop . . .




BAEN BOOKS by SPIDER ROBINSON

The Star Dancers (with Jeanne Robinson)

Starmind(with Jeanne Robinson)

Deathkiller

User Friendly

Lifehouse

By Any Other Name




ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to thank master roboticist Guy Immega (again!), ace physicist Douglas Beder, and
Renaissance man Bob Atkinson for technical assistance in matters both scientific and speculative; K. Eric
Drexler, Chris Peterson and Gayle Pergamit for explaining the nearly infinite potential of nanotechnology
with their historic and indispensable book,Unbounding the Future [Quill/William Morrow], a follow-up
to Drexler's classicThe Engines of Creation (almost none of what we read there made it into this
volume, but we couldn't have written the first word without all of it); Peter Mathiessen for hipping us to