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

The three of them strolled away from Factor Wall's exhibit and down the hallway through the rows of
holo-projic dioramas. Many of the displays had been here for fifty years before Pen had first come to the
compound as a new student, and he was as familiar with them as he was the bonsai and gardens outside
in the tropical air.

"Here, have you seen this one?"

Spiral nodded at a full-scale display of a pair of spetsdods mounted inside a block of clear plastic. The
weapons were small parallelograms, nearly diamond-shaped, each with a thin spun-fiber barrel. The
magazine ejection button was the only visible control, since a spetsdod was fired by touching the barrel
with the tip of the index finger. This rather tricky operation was made possible by the position of the
weapon where it rode securely on the back of the operator's hand, held there by a thin slab of artificial
flesh. A spetsdod operator learned care quickly.

Moon stepped close to the exhibit."Khadaji's?"

"Yes. That's his signature, authenticating them as one of the sets he used. The Smith has another set, and
there's a pair in theProvincialMuseum on Greaves. As far as we know, those are the only ones on public
display."

"Nice of Emile to give them to us," Pen said.

The three started to move on.

Behind them, there was an explosion. The force of the blast knocked all three siblings sprawling. Debris
sleeted past, spattering the walls and exhibits.

Penraised from his face-down position and shook his head, trying to clear the ringing in his ears. An
alarm began to hoot, over and over, and he rolled onto his side from his belly, afraid, but not for himself.

"Moon—!?"

"Chang and Buddha on a goddamn stick!" she said.

Thank all the gods. They had been living together for so long that the idea of being without her was
inconceivable.Ever since he had left Rim. Twenty years.

"Spiral."

"I'm okay."

"Pen.Your arm!"

As Moon sat up and pointed at him, Pen became aware of the pain in his left shoulder. He looked at it.
 A shard of thincris had buried itself in his deltoid. The force of the explosion was such that the handsized
sliver had pierced the rip-stop weave of thekawa shroud. He touched the clear crystal section with his
right hand. It didn't move.Must be all the way to the bone, as solid as it felt. And now it really began to
hurt. Blood oozed out through the torn cloth and dripped from the thincris onto the floor. Still, it was a
small price.