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

When she first arrived on Hades, Deirdre tried diligently to live by the laws of
New Harmony, treating everyone with kindness, sympathy, and understanding,
hoping for fairness in return--vastly amusing her captors. Slavers raised the price of
compassion, teaching Deirdre to keep such feelings to herself. They cared not a whit
how others felt, which was their biggest failing, the one most likely to get them all
killed. But try telling that to an Eridani slaver. Otherwise they were orderly and
efficient, and extremely good at what they did, which was kidnapping people for
sale, ransom, or personal use. Deirdre complained, “Do I have to bunk with them?”
 Her best chance of getting away was to convince some man that she was well
worth saving. Hauling two kids about easily halved her slim chances.
Hess shrugged, “No room. Ship-of-war, and all that. Besides, this is not so
bad,” he looked happily about, running a keen reaver’s gaze over the cabin’s real
ivory inlay, and pre-atomic cut crystal. Commander Hess was mysteriously immune
to the pall her arrival cast over the flagship. Did Hess know something that she did
not? Probably. His smile broadened, the first real smile she had seen since coming
aboard. Hess asked, “We have come a long way, haven’t we?”
Deirdre did not answer. Hess had saved her life, forming a weird bond
between them, though it hardly made them close. She had been living with slavers
since she was twelve, but Commander Hess was the one that gave her nightmares,
scaring her more than any of them, more than Konar himself. Just being in the same
room with him gave her the cold, screaming shivers.
Hess was the slaver who went through that Goodwill City blast shelter, killing
everyone but her. Six years later, she could still hear her classmates’ pleas and
screams in her head, echoing off steel reinforced walls. And she always feared Hess
would one day kill her, just to finish the job. Some nights Deirdre dreamed she was
back in the blast shelter, staring into the pistol muzzle, only this time Hess pulled the
trigger, and she felt the silent bullets strike.
Commander Hess of the Hiryu did another little heel-clicking bow, then left.
Thank Gladys. Deirdre sank down into a glove leather chair, mulling options. The
two well-dressed kids were still out on the balcony, waving stupidly at the holos--at
least the boy was. Deirdre had friends and contacts on Hades that she ached to talk
to, but Fafnir was under communications lock down--leaving her on her own.
Shutting her eyes, Deirdre tried desperately to think. She could not die, not
with rescue only light hours away. Somehow she would save herself. But how?
Behind her blemishless, biosculpted features, lurked the hideous truth that beauty
was only skin deep--it did not make her better, smarter, or more noble. It did not
even make her nicer, though people liked to think so. So far it just made for
incredibly weird relations with men.
“Cool boots.”
She opened her eyes. Both kids had come in from the balcony, and the boy
with spiked purple hair stood in front of her, staring at her black leather boots. He
looked up at her, saying, “So, what are you doing in my Grand-dad’s cabin?”
Her inquisitor wore a natty man’s jacket, cut just for him, and neatly tailored
pants. His own shoes were a pricy pair of snake-skin slippers over silk stockings. He
asked again, “What are you doing in Grand-dad’s cabin?”
“He still thinks we are on Elysium,” the girl explained. She was older than her
brother, but not by much. Up close they were clearly brother and sister, even though
his hair was purple, and hers blue-blonde.
“Prove we are not,” the boy insisted. His sister rolled her blue eyes--like she
really had to “prove” they were abducted by slavers, and light years from anywhere.