"Holly Lisle - Hunting the Corrigan's Blood" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lisle Holly)

I hated being dead. I hadn't wanted to die, and I really hadn't wanted to die at twenty-eight, beaten,
shoved into a locker with a snide corpse, and deprived of the chance to make twenty million rucets.

That money would have let me pay off the loan on my ship, a refitted single-crew fantail corsair with a
full-sized cargo hold and berths for twelve, a ship I'd named Hope's Reward.

And all I'd had to do for the money was find a missing yacht, Corrigan's Blood, that had belonged to
Peter Crane, the owner of Monoceros Starcraft, Ltd., and bring it back.

The corpse flashed a wide smile; it kept growing wider as her face started to rip. The bones bulged out,
and her jaws came at me, teeth gnashing. I heard them whirring and clicking and thumping… clicking…
thumping… whirring…

I beat my head against the door again. Pounded it hard, trying with all my strength to break free from the
hungry, grinning corpse, fighting with everything in me…

Whirring… clicking… thumping… whirring…

Outside of our cell! Those sounds came from outside of our cell. They were the first I'd heard in days. A
bot. That wasn't her teeth, it was a bot. I pounded my head harder, and was rewarded with the sound of
metal tapping on metal. The bot's sensors had picked up the noise, and now it was investigating. I could
hear its arms working the latch that held the door closed.

It beeped and whirred and tapped and scraped, and nothing happened.

Too late anyway, of course—I was already dead. But at least Badger would know what had become of
me.

I kept making as much noise as I could. Moments passed, while the bot sat outside the locker, grumbling
to itself and tapping and twisting at the latch. And then I heard the sound of running feet. Human feet.
Someone had looked up when the auto-bot reported a problem with one of the lockers, had heard the

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 Lisle, Holly - Hunting the Corrigan's Blood

sounds my struggles through its sensors, and had come to help. I hoped.

"Oh, my God! What a stink!" a male voice said.

I beat my head against the metal and made such noises as the gag allowed. From the other side, I heard
tools working on the door. "Shit. Hold on," he said. I stopped beating my head on the door, and was
surprised how much better that felt. Tiny lights flashed behind my eyelids and a red haze of pain
throbbed inside of my skull. The man added, "I'll get you out. Someone has… spot-sealed the metal…
but I can break the seals." I could hear him straining in between words, fighting the door.

Then something clanged, and the door flew open, and bright light and cool clean air blew across my face
and my friend and I flopped sideways onto the floor. Hard floor. Why didn't anyone ever make floors
soft and spongy? The pain in my arm and leg and ribs and head got a lot worse when I hit.

When I twisted left, I could see my rescuer standing over me. Metallic bronze Melatint skin, wave-cut