"Mike Resnick - Velvet Comet 2 - Eros At Zenith" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

minimum.
"You're the Dragon Lady?" Crane asked.
"And you must be Mr. Crane."
"Where the hell have you been?" he demanded.
"Now, that's a cordial greeting," she replied dryly.
"It's better than the one you gave me," said Crane. "Where were you?"
"Busy."
"Doing what?"
"Tightening the security in the Resort. We can assume that none of the patrons are in any
danger, but we can't know it."
He considered her answer for a moment.
"All right," he said at last. "I approve."
"Thank you," she replied with a hint of irony.
"I thought all Security personnel wore green uniforms," he noted.
"All except me."
"Any particular reason?"
"It's part of the illusion," she explained.
"I don't follow you."
"When you came through the airlock, Mr. Crane, you stepped into a fantasy world.
Aboard the Velvet Comet the mask is more important than the face. I am the Dragon
Lady; therefore I dress like the Dragon Lady. This is my public persona."
"And no one else in Security has a mask?" he inquired wryly.
"Their mask is a green uniform," she replied with a smile. "Mine isn't. It's one of the nice
things about being Chief of Security." She gestured toward the door. "Shall we go
inside?"
He nodded and followed her into the hospital. It was a small but efficient complex, with
private facilities for treating up to 30 patients, two operating theaters, a pair of physical
therapy rooms, a low-gravity ward for heart patients, and a number of diagnostic
centers. The walls gleamed a cheerful yellow, the floor was tan and polished, the
atmosphere seemed expensive and formal. The overall impression Crane got was one of
luxurious efficiency. He couldn't imagine that the standard cuisine here differed
markedly from that of the Resort, or that the prostitutes weren't encouraged to stop by
the sickbay now and then to give a patient some special therapy.
"The hospital doesn't have a mortuary, so we put him in here," said the Dragon Lady,
stopping by a door bearing an OBSERVATION WARD notation.
"Nobody saw you bring him in?"
She shook her head. "There were only two patients here at the time. One was sound
asleep, and the other was in surgery."
"How about the patrons in the Mall?" asked Crane.
"There's a service area below the tramway level. We brought him here on a truck lift, and
took him in through the service entrance."
"Well, at least somebody did something right," he commented.
"How thoughtful of you to notice," she replied.
She recited a six-digit code, and a moment later the door slid back. The ward contained
four beds, each capable of being tied into a bank of life support systems. Three of the
beds were empty; the fourth contained a nude male body.
Crane sniffed the air and made a face: even the filtration system couldn't totally mask
the odor.
"How long has he been dead?" he asked.
"The one doctor who's been allowed to see him estimates that he died between 64 and 72