"C. Sanford Lowe & G. David Nordley - The Small Pond" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lowe C Sanford)

the drug myself instead of ordering it the usual way. Peal has probably compromised
the system, and we don’t want to make him suspicious.”
The moment turned into several minutes—precious minutes in which either
Peal or Gunheim might do something to make what she planned impossible. Finally,
Mac returned. He held out a small blue capsule to her, and she took it in her hand. It
stuck to her.
“Geckro surface. You can hide it in your mouth and it will stay put. Bite it
hard when you need it. You’d better get going.”
Liz nodded in acknowledgement. “Don’t tell Cyan until I’m in.” She turned
and headed for the Canning base airlock.
****
Three hours later, Liz came through an airlock and faced Peal. She’d gotten
seven hostages freed in exchange for herself—not as many as she’d hoped—before
she went in. The remaining hostages were in the back of the lounge module Peal had
occupied, normally a place for crews to take a break from vacuum work. It was
essentially a spacecraft with everything but a propulsion system. The chunky,
beady-eyed man stared back at her, his mouth set, looking for all the world like a
rebellious teenager. A dull-finished utilitarian humanoid robot, anatomically correct in
one important feature, stood quietly beside him. Peal’s sick sense of humor, she
thought. The hostages were in plain view sitting on a couch and chairs in the room
behind him. The hostages weren’t bound, but Peal had erected a transparent barrier
between their part of the lounge and his. There were handcuffs on the table in front
of them.
A hummingbird-sized robot hovered about her on nearly silent fans,
undoubtedly probing for anything technological down to the size limit of
autonomous robotics. Steady, girl, Liz told herself as she let herself be inspected.
“Okay, you pass,” Peal finally said. “So here we have one of these would-be
gods that want to play with universes! Do you feel godlike now?”
He wanted to humiliate her! Maybe she could play that angle. “Let these
people go, please. Then I’ll do whatever you want.”
Peal laughed. “Really? Wu and Markovitch, get your suits on and get out of
here. Simmons and MacGregor, you stay for now.”
Mac’s wife was a petite brunette, her face a mask of determined calm.
“Everyone, Peal. Please.”
“No. I may want some more fun later. Are you going to keep your bargain?”
 Liz bit her lip. She didn’t want anyone else around but, she told herself, the
gain was worth the risk. “Okay. What do you want?”
He leered at her. “Take your shipsuit off. Put a set of handcuffs on and come
in here.”
Liz complied. The handcuffs clicked ever so softly as she shut them around
her wrists. The material felt like basalt fiber composite—the standard 3D lithography
material. It was strong enough, but brittle, she thought.
When she got the cuffs on, a section of the barrier slid aside.
“Come in,” Peal said with a grin. As she reached the opening in the barrier, the
humanoid robot began to move toward her. “A modification of the virtual reality
glove. What it feels, I feel. Now turn around. Do you know what ‘black hole’ means
in Russian?”
Now or never, Liz thought. She bit down on the capsule as she complied with
Peal’s order, moving back against the barrier as she did so. She shivered to elevate
her heart rate and hyperventilated. Strength flowed into her. Steady, she told herself,