"Foster, Alan Dean - Flinx - Orphan Star" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

cool efficiency of the syringe....

He awoke to find himself staring at a tumbled panoply of lights. They were
spread out before and below him, viewed as they were through a wall and
floor of transparent plastic.

Slowly he struggled to a sitting position, which was accomplished with some
difficulty since his wrists were manacled together by two chromed metal
cuffs. A long tube of flexible metal ran off from them and disappeared
among rich furniture. The chain meandered through the thick transparent
carpet like a mirror- backed worm.

Looking out, Flinx could see the lights that were the city-pulse of
Drallar, dominated by the glowing spires of the King's palace off to the
left. The view enabled him to orient himself. Combining the position of the
palace with the pattern of lower lights and the knowledge that he was
several stories above ground indicated that he was being held captive in
one of the four sealed inurbs of the city. These guarded, restrictive
enclaves held the homes of the upper classes, of those native to Drallar
and those off-worlders who had commerce here. His assailants, then, were
more than gutter thieves.

He was unable to pick tip any impressions nearby. At the moment the only
alien sensation he could detect was a slight throbbing in the muscles of
his upper right arm, where the syringe had struck home. A different kind of
sensation was inspired by his own anger, anger directed at himself for not
detecting the inimical emanations his attackers must have been putting out
before he entered the bathroom.

Suddenly he noticed another sensation missing, too. The comfortable weight
of Pip was absent from his shoulders.

"Hello," ventured a tiny, silvery voice.

Spinning, Flinx found himself eye-to-eye with an angel. He relaxed, swung
his feet off the couch, and regarded her in surprise. She could not have
been more than nine or ten years old, was clad .in a powder blue- and-green
fringed pantsuit with long sleeves of some transparent lacy material. Long
blond hair fell in manicured ripples to the backs of her thighs. Baby-blue
eyes looked out at him from the high-boned face of a sophisticated cherub.

"My name's Mahnahmi," she informed him softly, her voice running up and
down like a piccolo trill, "what's yours?"

"Everybody calls me Flinx."

"Flinx." She was sucking on the knuckle of her big finger. "That's a funny
name, but nice." A smile showed perfect pearly teeth. "Want to see what my
daddy brought me?"