"Lynn,.Elizabeth.-.Sardonyx.Net" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lynn Elizabeth A)

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The Sardonyx Net
by Elizabeth A. Lynn
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Copyright (c)1981 by Elizabeth A. Lynn


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Science Fiction


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NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Duplication or distribution of this work by email, floppy disk, network, paper print out, or any other method is a violation of international copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines and/or imprisonment.
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The assistance of the following people is gratefully acknowledged: Dr. Jane Robinson, Dr. Seelye Martin, Sonni Efron, Lyndall MacCowan, Martha McCabe, Fran Krauss, Ellen Jacobs, Robert W. Shurtleff, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Gordon R. Dickson, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, David G. Hartwell, and Yvon Chouinard.
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For Marta, who read it first, and
for Debbie, who read it twice.
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"_History is not romantic_."
-- Nakamura Kenji, _History of Chabad_
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*Chapter One*
Dana Ikoro, smuggler, stood facing Monk the drug courier across the floor of the starship _Treasure_. He was furious.
Monk had ebony skin and a sleek, shaven skull. She wore silver leggings and ruby earrings, and between her breasts dangled a shiny gold medallion, sister to the one Dana Ikoro wore around his neck. She was well known on the dorazine circuit. She was two meters tall and Dana had to look up to her.
It was not a position he liked. He clenched his fists in his pocket and swore under his breath in Pellish. Monk gazed at him, eyelids drooping evilly, ostentatiously bored. He repeated what she had just told him. "The drugs have already gone?"
She nodded, slouching. "That's right."
He could see she enjoyed his discomfort, and it enraged him. "You want to tell me how you managed to lose three thousand unit doses of dorazine?"
She shrugged. "I follow instructions. Instructions said, Wait for a ship carrying this code, hitting these coordinates, at this time. I pick up the stuff from the robo, Jump here, wait. Twenty minutes ago, _Lamia_ Jumps in, matches codes with me. I know _Lamia_. I know Tori Lamonica. We've done business before. Codes match, we transfer. Twenty minutes later, you Jump through with the identical code, the dorazine's gone. That's not my fault." She gazed over his head as she talked.
Jacked, Dana thought. Damn it, Lamonica jacked me!
He'd never been jacked before. Dorazine was prime cargo. Damn and blast it, he'd never _carried_ dorazine before! He'd had to buy equipment: the Drug spoiled at temperatures under 6 degrees and over 14 degrees Celsius. The special cooling unit had cost him five hundred credits, but he'd expected to realize at least three thousand upon sale of the drug on Chabad. He was not only out his own money, but he'd been made a fool of, and in the smugglers' canon, ridicule presaged poverty. He might never get a second chance to run the drug.
It did not make him feel any better to know that he'd been taken by an expert. Tori Lamonica boasted of her skill in jacking cargoes in every sector, planet, and Port of the Living Worlds. He controlled his anger with an effort. This was Monk's ship; he could hardly tear it to bits as he wanted to -- and Monk didn't care if he went bust as vacuum.
"Great," he said. "That was my cargo. Now what do I do? Got any suggestions?"
She smiled, showing perfect teeth. "Jack someone else."
Dana bristled. "That's not my style. I'm no thief."
The tall woman yawned. "I wouldn't call Tori Lamonica a thief -- not to her face, anyway. Who suckered you into this business?"
The question was rhetorical and insulting but Dana decided to answer it anyway; he might learn something. "I've been running comine," he said. "I thought I might make more credits working for The Pharmacy."
"Sure," said Monk. "If you don't land in a cell." She took two steps to the pilot's chair, sat in it, touched a button negligently. The screens came on. "Don't know why Tori wants your cargo, anyway. Dorazine's not safe."
"What?"
"You haven't heard?" Monk tilted her head to one side. Even her eyebrows were shaved. "That new top drug cop, A-Rae. He's snake-mean about the dorazine trade. Obsessed. The cops have left off haunting drop points -- not that it ever did them any good. They're clustered down in Sardonyx Sector off Chabad, picking runners up when they try to land, playing leapfrog along the spaceways."
"I hadn't heard about that," Dana admitted.
"The regulars are looking for other work," said Monk. She chuckled, and stretched her legs halfway across the starship's floor. "The Pharmacy's _real_ unhappy."
All the regulars except Lamonica, Dana thought. He glanced at the starship's vision screen. It showed the darkness of spacetime normal, mitigated by the pulsing light from a nearby Cepheid. The yellow star had no planets, and that made it a convenient place for a drop point. There were hundreds of such points scattered through the eight Federation sectors.
"Lamonica's going to Chabad," Dana said. It was not quite a question. Hypers did not ask each other about other Hypers.
Monk yawned again. "She's got nowhere else to go. She's carrying dorazine." Her tone was weary -- an expert, explaining something to a slightly stupid novice. Dana's temper flared. He turned and strode to the lock which connected Monk's ship with his own. He slithered through it, graceful as all Hypers were, balancing without thought as the floor rippled under his feet. Palming the hatchway plate, he waited for the door to open, then grabbed the bar and swung within his starship's curving walls. The door slid shut. He checked the seal...."Disengage," he said over the audio link.