"R. Garcia y Robertson - Teen Angel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robertson R Garcia Y)

Teen Angel
by R. Garcia y Robertson
Tor has just released the author’s latest “Lady Robyn” novel, White Rose, in
papeback, and he is at work on a new book in the series entitled King’s Lady. A
fantasy hardcover novel, Firebird, will be out from Tor in the spring. Rod’s latest
tale for us is set in the same universe as his February 2005 cover story, “Oxygen
Rising.”
****
Deirdre of the Sorrows
“Here comes the Angel of Death.” Deirdre heard some thug say it in slaver
slang as she stepped out of the lock onto Fafnir’s E-deck. She fixed a smile on her
face. Nice greeting, shipmate, let us hope it does not come true for you. The slaver’s
horrified look turned instantly into a stare as blank as the armored bulkhead.
Hardly the effect she hoped for. Having just shuttled up from Hades, she wore
thigh-length leather boots beneath a shimmering cloth-of-silver kimono, cut short to
show off her hips. With her came two SuperCat bodyguards, two-meter tall
bioconstructs, Homo smilodon--half human, half feline--with tawny fur, curved
dagger-like canines, human hands and forebrains, and tiny bobbed tails. This
particular pair wore battle armor, riot pistols, and stun grenades, but the Fafnir’s
crew did not give the gene-spliced killers a second glance. She was what scared
them.
Having hardened Eridani slavers blanch at the sight of her was something new
to Deirdre. Since birth she had been outrageously beautiful, a gorgeous baby that
only grew more lovely. So lovely, that for much of her short life, she had been
treated more like a gaudy objet d’art than a real person--witness her current
black-leather geisha outfit. Even as an infant, men oohed and cooed over Deirdre,
telling her how cute and lovely she was, happily predicting she would become a “real
heart breaker.”
That had yet to happen. Until she was twelve, Deirdre took this adulation as
just another adult extravagance. Attention was nice, but hardly turned her head. Who
wanted to be “a heart breaker” anyway? Not her. Growing up on New Harmony, she
had been far more concerned with sleepovers and sky sailing. Her home world lived
the way the King would, with tolerance and mercy to all. Looks were not
everything--or so her parents said.
At age twelve Deirdre found out looks could indeed be everything, literally life
and death, teaching her just how unusually beautiful she was. Huddled in a public
blast shelter during the tail end of a slaver raid on Goodwill City, she prayed for
Priscilla’s protection, listened in horror as a slaver went through the shelter
eliminating witnesses.
Whatever weapon the slaver used was noiseless. Eyes shut tight, Deirdre
heard terrified pleas and cries of terror, cut off one by one, sobs and begging
replaced by silence. She recognized her friends’ voices, fellow members of the
Lisa-Marie middle school’s Humanities Club, who had left school early for a field
trip, to cheer up terminal patients at a local hospice. Now they were dying horribly.
Finally the killer’s footsteps came to her. She looked up into the black muzzle
of a silenced machine pistol.
Too terrified to cry, she watched the man’s eyes widen, his finger frozen on
the firing stud. For a long moment they stared at each other, killer and victim. Then
she saw that familiar reassuring smile. He liked how she looked.
Holstering his pistol, the man helped Deirdre up, and led her out of the shelter,