"William C. Dietz - By Force of Arms" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dietz William)

Moving quickly, lest the body cool, the diminutive kill-
ers towed the Naa over to the bedroom door, raised him


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up, and pressed a palm against the print-sensitive lock. The
mechanism made a soft but distinctive click.

Maylo heard the door lock click and frowned. Hardswim
never entered the room without requesting permission
first—not to mention the fact that it was the middle of the
night.

Having been awake for some time, the executive's eyes
were fully adjusted to the half darkness that pervaded the
room. She saw the door open a crack and made up her
mind. There had been a time when she would have laughed
at the notion of assassins, but that was before she had spent
months as a political prisoner, and been forced to shoot a
man at close range. Better to look stupid than dead.

Booly felt a hand cover his mouth, came instantly
awake, and felt for the handgun. It had a tendency to mi-
grate during the night, especially when they made love,
but it happened to be in the spot where he'd left it. His
fingers closed around cool metal as lips brushed his ear.
"Someone opened the door."

The officer nodded, nudged Maylo toward the far side
of the bed, and nicked the safety to the "off' position.

Someone else might have yelled something like "Who's
there? I have a gun'" but Booty didn't believe in that sort
of nonsense. He figured that anyone who mistakenly en-
tered a locked room during the middle of the night de-
served to die. He rolled to the left, saw motion, and opened
fire.

The first assassin staggered as two bullets ripped
through her body, but the second and third made it through
the door, and opened fire with handheld flechette throwers.
The dans sampled the air, identified epithelial cells

BY FORCE OF ARMS 5

that matched the DNA they were programmed to seek, and
steered themselves accordingly.