"Continuing Time - 04 - The AI War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moran Daniel Keys)

“Right.”
“Wait,” the assassin said, “no, wait, wait, Jones.”
Trent laughed out loud. “Oh, come on.”
Reverend Andy said, “What? What?”
Trent was still grinning at the assassin. “Chuck Jones was an animator. From the
Golden Age. Did a lot of the great Bugs Bunny and Road Runner cartoons.”
The assassin’s expression changed slightly. “Don’t forget Duck Dodgers in the
24th Century.”
Trent said, “Man, I hate tourists. Let me see if I have this right; you came out
here to visit the museum, watch a couple of Bugs flicks, saw me and decided I
was Trent and figured what the hell, let’s pop him. How are we on the broad
outline?”
Silence.
Reverend Andy said, “Let me hit him a few times. Maybe cut off a few fingers. Or
all of them.”
The man’s eyes widened slightly.
“You’ll get vomit on your hands if you hit him,” said Trent.
“OK,” Reverend Andy agreed, “let’s just go right to chopping off his fingers.”
“Chuck Clearmountain,” the man said abruptly.
Trent expected that Captain Bittan was monitoring the brig; in the event that
she wasn’t, Trent said through his inskin, Captain Bittan: Assassin identifies
himself as Chuck Clearmountain. Tourist from Earth. Track him down with Belt
InTourist, please. To Chuck Clearmountain he said, “That was too easy; you have
a very low Threshold of Fear. Bad trait in an assassin. Any reason in particular
we shouldn’t space you?”
Clearmountain just looked at Trent. “You wouldn’t.”
“Don’t believe everything you audit,” said Trent mildly. “All a virtuous
reputation means is nobody’s caught you at anything yet. As if I didn’t know
already, just why did you try to kill me?”
The man flushed and looked down at the deck. “Oh, Harry … it was just—” He
looked back up at Trent, said pleadingly, “Ten million Credits, dead or alive.
You’re Number One on the bounty listings.”
“Number One with a bullet,” Trent muttered.
The words tumbled out of Clearmountain. “Do you know what that kind of Credit
means? I could get full Medical for my parents, for my grandparents. I could
make sure my kids and their kids never had to worry about ending up in Public
Labor. I could afford the third child license—”
“You’re going to make me cry,” said Reverend Andy. “Goddamn blood money—‘scuse
me. Damn blood money.” Sometimes Reverend Andy forgot that he was a Reverend and
reverted to football player swearing. He looked over at Trent. “I say we let him
suck death pressure.”
Even in drop the assassin sagged visibly. It was obviously no more than he had
expected.
Trent grinned at Reverend Andy. “Remember the last one? His eyes popped out just
like Roger Rabbit’s. Big huge saucers,” he said to Chuck Clearmountain. “Anyway,
what made you think I was me?”
Clearmountain’s head floated limply. He said in a dead voice, “Everyone knows
you’re out in the Belt. There’s some things biosculpture can’t disguise; there
aren’t all that many twenty-eight year old hundred ninety-odd centimeter
downsiders with muscles floating around the Belt. I saw you at the Museum a