"Steve Perry - Matador 6 - The Albino Knife" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Steven)

"That's it. Take him out."

Sleel gathered himself for the moment that the pressor field would let go. Hell, there were just four of
them, and armed with only hand wands. Any matador worth a damn ought to be able to take these
balloos without working up a good sweat. He grinned at the thought.

"Should I shut the field off?" one of the guards asked.

The head guard, one who had been knocked silly by Sleel during an earlier escape attempt, smiled to
match the trapped matador's expression. "Just a second," he said. He pulled his hand wand, a standard
issue straight tube, but one that had been customized with pearl inlays and a Pachmayr one-piece
stikgrip. He pointed the weapon at Sleel. "Have a nice nap, elbowsucker," the guard said.

Sleel had time to realize what was happening before the guard flashed him. Dammit, they were gonna
blast himbefore they let the pressor down.

Shit—

Prologue Five

Saval Bork was of homomue stock, born of a heavy gravity world, and big by any man or mue
standard. On a one-gee planet like Fox, he weighed nearly a hundred and twenty-five kilos, and he stood
not quite two meters tall. Between the high-gravity upbringing and his subsequent work with lifting
weights, Bork had built his body to impressive proportions, with power to match his looks. He knew his
own strength, after a fashion, but he sometimes did things without thinking that other men could not do
with all-out effort. What he considered hard made most strong men quail.

As he walked along the quiet street in Zor, the main city on the Little Island, Bork was once again lost in
memory. It had been five years and more since Mayli had died, cut down by the guns of the
Confederation. The wound to Bork's heart seemed as fresh as if it had happened yesterday. He had
loved only one woman in his life, a woman who had been many things, doctor, whore, teacher,
matadora. She had called from his depths an emotion he had not known he'd had, and his life had truly
begun on that day; now, she was dead, and not a waking hour passed without Bork's regret.

This town, this planet, this system, they were backrocket places where even a man who had been one of
the heroes of the revolution could mostly stay lost. Not unnoticed, because someone who looked like
Bork always drew stares, but at least he wasn't bothered very often. Last year, when one of the entcom
channels ran a lurid vid about the last days of the Confed, they'd gotten some giant actor to play his part.
A few people had asked him about it then, but Bork had simply stared at them until they shut up and
went away. He rarely lost his temper and, looking as hedid, most people didn't want that to happen. He'd
shucked his spetsdods and orthoskins for anonymous gray coveralls and he'd gone back to his old line of
work, security in a local pub. After he warned a couple of overchemmed and drunk patrons to quiet
down, once by lifting a big man clear of the floor by his shirt front, word got around the neighborhood
that it was probably better not to get in Bork's way.
 He was on his way to his cube from work, the corpse-stealer's shift, and Fox's sun had yet to come up,
though it was trying. The narrow street was quiet, only a few electric carts humming along,no other
pedestrians up at this hour.

Ahead four men came out of a pub, laughing too loudly and making broad gestures in the dimness of
false dawn. They looked like an all-night party winding down, but as Bork walked toward them, he saw