"C. J. Cherryh - Chanur 02 - Chanur's Venture" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cherryh C J)

a fight."
"Run," the kif hissed. "Run, Chanur. You run from kif before."
"Come on." Hilfy wrapped her arm tightly about Khym's elbow. She guided him
through the crowd toward the doorway, past the first brush of robes, trying to
look noncombatant, trying to watch the whereabouts of dark kifish hands beneath
the dusky cloth.
"Hilfy," said Khym.
She looked up. The whole doorway had filled with kif.
"It's got a knife!" A hani voice. "Look out, kid--"
Something flew, trailing beer and froth, and hit a kifish head. "Got!" A mahen
voice crowed delight. Kif lunged, Khym lunged. Hilfy hit a kif with claws bared
and bodies tangled in the doorway. Yiiii-yinnnnn! a stsho voice wailed above the
din. "Yeeiei-yi! Police, police, police!"
"Yaooo!" (The mahendo'sat).
"Na Khym!"
Tirun's voice, a roar from outside the tangled doorway, inbound. "Hilfy! Na
Khym! Chanur!"
"Ayhar, ai Ayhar."
"Catimin-shai!"
Mugs and bottles sailed.



* * *


"He's on the Rows! Hurry!" Haral's voice came from the pocket com; and Pyanfar,
delaying for a check of eat-shops outside the market, started to run for all she
was worth, past startled mahendo'sat and stsho who leapt from her path, herself
dodging round the confused course of a methane-breather vehicle that zigged away
on another tack.
Sirens sounded. The three-story bulkhead doors of the market sector were
blinking with red warning lights. She put on a final burst of speed and dived
through asprawl as the valves began to move. The edges met with a boom and
airshock that shook the deck, drowning the din of howls beyond, and she gathered
herself up off the deck plates and ran without even a backward look.
The whole market was in turmoil. Merchants or looters snatched armfuls of
whatever they could; aisles jammed. Animals screeched above the roar. A black
thing darted past Pyanfar's legs and yelped at being trodden on. She vaulted a
counter, scrambled on a rolling scatter of trinkets, found a clear aisle and ran
toward the Rows where a moment's clear sight showed a heaving mass in the
doorway. Stsho darted from that crowd, pale and gibbering; drunken mahendo'sat
stayed to yell odds -- a pair of hani arrived from the other direction: Chur and
Geran headed full tilt toward the mass.
She jerked spectators this way and that, careless of her claws. Mahendo'sat
howled outrage and moved. A kif-shape darted past her, moving faster than clear
sight. She caught at it and got only robe as she broke through to the center of
the mob. Plastic splintered. Glass broke, bodies rolled underfoot.
More kif ran from the scene, a scatter of black-robed streaks outward bound at
speed.