"Andre Norton - Time Traders 6 - Echoes In Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

"If that ship is blown up, she will answer to me," Misha said, and again
he fired, winging a second figure in the arm.

The trefoil flicker of automatic weapons fire glowed outside, and all
around Misha wood splintered. Glass shattered and rained down in a
musical tinkle. He dropped to the dusty wooden floor and belly-crawled,
not back to the inner room, as Gaspardin did, but to the kitchen annex,
where he'd stashed an old wartime teargas pistol.

As the furious automatic fire stitched across the weatherworn,
dilapidated building, Misha loaded the pistol with a teargas cannister,
used the butt to knock out a corner of the brittle glass, and then took aim.

He fired into the midst of the attackers. Heard choked, angry cries. A
whiff of teargas drifted on the cold air, making him sneeze, just as raking
bullets smashed into the antique ceramic oven, sending out a lethal spray
of shards.

Warmth creased Misha's ribs. He ignored it. Steadied his grip. Shot a
second time, then flung aside the tear gas weapon and picked up his
pistol. Dropped the magazine. Checked to see if it still had ammunition.
Slid the magazine home and jacked a round into the chamber.

He kept crawling from place to place, forcing himself to make each shot
count, until the roaring outside grew louder than the roar in his ears.

The shooting had ceased. He leaned against a window, glanced outside,
and realized the gangsters had retreated to their vehicles and roared away.

Misha stared through the window, trying to make sense of the endless
gray Siberian sky meeting the distant horizon. But it didn't make sense.
Nothing made sense except the fact that the mission was safe. The alien
ship was safe.

"… realize it, don't you?"
 Misha looked over his shoulder, made out in the swiftly gathering
darkness Gaspardin's anger-narrowed eyes, his mouth white in his
grizzled jowls.

"You defied orders," Gaspardin repeated. Then his expression changed
as his gaze worked down Misha's shirt.

Misha glanced down, but all he saw were billowing clouds of darkness.
He lifted his free hand to his side, and felt the wet warmth there.

"Damn," he said, and slid into the darkness.



HE WOKE STARING up at a low sod ceiling. He smelled generations of