"Timothy Zahn - Angelmass" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zahn Timothy)

got when she was getting ready to score a track and suddenly had the impression that the targ was
onto her. The horrible demand of a crucial decision: whether to keep going, and hope her twitches

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Timothy%20Zahn%20-%20Angelmass.htm (11 of 374) [10/18/2004 3:37:36 PM]
Angelmass

were wrong, or to pop the cord, lose all the prep time, and look for a targ who would more easily
part with his spare cash.

Should she pop the cord on this whole crazy idea? It still wasn't too late to do that, she knew. She
could get up right now and walk out of the spaceport and try to bury herself somewhere on Uhuru
instead of going off to a whole new world.

Only she couldn't. Trilling had friends everywhere on Uhuru. Sooner or later, he'd catch up with her.
On Lorelei... well, at least she'd have a head start.

Maybe. Reaching into her pocket, feeling the same tingling in her fingertips that she always got
when handling merchandise that had cost her blood and sweat to get hold of, she slid out the
precious piece of threaded plastic. Chandris Lalasha, the name at the top said, and for probably the
hundredth time she wished she had had the time and money to have a new ID made up. She hadn't
used the Lalasha surname since she was thirteen, a year before she met and moved in with Trilling.
But if he got into the spaceline data listings the Chandris part would be a dead giveaway.

She snorted to herself. If he got in, hell. When he got in. Trilling was the one who'd taught her how
to crack into fancy computer systems. Her only chance was that he wouldn't expect her to do
something this crazy, or at least that he wouldn't think she could get enough money together this
quickly to spring for a spaceliner ticket.

But, then, who knew how Trilling's mind worked these days?

Unconsciously, Chandris tightened her grip on the plastic card. She'd heard a kosh brag once about
how he'd killed someone with a spaceliner ticket. She wondered if any of that story had been true.

The line was beginning to shrink now, the passengers showing their tickets to the reader display and
attendant and disappearing down the boarding tunnel. Chandris licked her lips, wincing at the
unfamiliar tart/sweet taste of expensive lipglow, and got to her feet, heart thudding in her ears as she
went over and joined the line. This was it; and it was Trilling's last chance to stop her. She'd sat over
in that corner for four hours straight, watching every single batch of passengers as they headed down
the tunnel, making sure that Trilling hadn't slipped aboard. If he didn't make this last shuttle she
would be safe. At least for now.

She reached the reader and the attendant standing beside it. "Hello," the man greeted her. For just a
second his eyes skipped down across her, taking in her bright blonded hair, her even brighter
lipglow, her probably botched attempt at an upper-class outfit.

And when he looked back up she could sense his quiet amusement. "And you are...?"

"Chandris Lalasha," she growled, thrusting her ticket at his face and then waving it over the reader.

"Nice to have you aboard, Miss Lalasha," he smiled. "You heading off to college?"