"Linda Nagata - Hooks, Nets & Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nagata Linda)

The kid blinked, an odd look of wonder on his face as he lay on the deck. "The shark," he whispered in
his cultured accent. "I was holding onto the mesh. My fingers were inside. I didn't see it coming." He
turned his head, to look out across the pen. Zayder followed his gaze. Tiburon had turned. He was
driving hard for the mesh again. "I never saw a shark before." He smiled in a dizzy, distracted way. "I
can't believe how lucky I am to see one."

Zayder scooped him up and ran for the shed as Tiburon hit the mesh one more time.
The kid had passed out by the time Zayder got him inside. Blood oozed from his fingers onto the
bedding, but the severed arteries had closed down and the flow was minuscule. Zayder bandaged each
finger. In the air-conditioned shed the kid's skin felt cold, so Zayder stripped off his wet clothes and
bundled him in a stale-smelling blanket. Then he sat down on the floor beside the pile of clothing, pausing
only to note the pricey designer names before going through the pockets.

He found a credit card and an I.D., both in the name of Commarin Wong. And he found an electronic
device, a black cylinder some seven centimeters long and one in diameter. It had an on/off button and a
working light. The corporate name embossed on the housing was Guidestar, a company that dealt in
geographical positioning equipment. Zayder guessed that the device was a transponder, presently
inactive. But who was it intended to signal?

He slipped the instrument into his own pocket as his earlier worries returned. Just who had tossed this
kid overboard? And wouldn't they come looking for him if they learned he was alive? He gathered up the
wet clothes. He should get rid of them, in case anyone came looking.

He'd started to stand, when he caught sight of the bloodstained sheets. Damn. He'd have to get rid of the
sheets too. And then there was the matter of the kid himself: Commarin Wong. The name tickled some
partial memory. Commarin Wong. As if he should have recognized it.

The kid groaned in his sleep. A moment later his eyelids fluttered. He stared at the ceiling for a moment,
then he turned his head. His gaze took in Zayder's face, before fixing on the company graphic on the
breast of Zayder's t-shirt: Ryanco. What little color there was in Commarin's pale face seemed to drain
away.

Zayder felt fear run in harsh prickles across his own skin. He didn't want to cross Ryan. He should call in;
report the incident. He cursed his shark-hunting youth, and the arrest that had ultimately forced him to
work for human sharks. He cursed himself, because he wasn't one of them. "Why does Mr. Ryan want
you dead?" he asked, his voice deliberately hard-edged.

A faint, self-deprecating smile flickered across Commarin's pale lips. "He doesn't want me dead," he
said, his voice barely more than a whisper, hoarse from a night of strangling on salt water. "He wants me
back."

Zayder resented what he believed to be a lie. "That was you screaming last night, wasn't it? They bound
your hands and threw you off that freighter, right? Well, you might have noticed, Commarin Wong, they
didn't send a boat after you."

Again, that self-effacing flash of a smile. "That's what happened," he agreed. "But you have the advantage
of me."

"The name's Zayder Silveira. Mr. Ryan's my boss, and I need this job."