"Bud Sparhawk - Bright Red Star" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sparhawk Bud)

modifications I'd had to undergo: cybernetic heart-lung pump with reserve oxygen so I could operate in
any atmosphere or even underwater; augmented muscles on legs and arms that balked me up like a
cartoon giant on steroids; amped vision that ran from the near infrared up toward the UV range—-I
could even switch to black and white for better night vision—and smart-metal skeleton structures to
provide a good base for my massive muscles. Flesh had been stripped from anything exposed and
replaced with impervious plas. My hands were electromechanical marvels capable of ripping
weapons-grade plating off a spaceship, and sensitive enough to lift a tiny girl without harm.

Then there was my glucose pump, a nasty, but useful technology we'd copied from the Shardies. Even
my brain had been altered—substituting silicon and gel for the mass of pink jelly I was born with.
Definitely not something you'd want your daughter to date. I'm glad it was dark. In daylight, I'd probably
scare the bejesus out of her.

"We're modified so we can fight the bastards," I growled. Revenge for relatives on Witca was my overt
reason. Curiosity about the Shardies, and getting a piece of them, was secondary. I saw no sense going
into the gory details or the agonizing processes involved with a little girl who wouldn't understand. "Tell
me about the rest of your group. Are they all right?"

"Mr. Robbarts is still the boss. He's the one that shot Paw, I think. And there's Jake and Sally and little
Billy. Billy's my friend. Jake's got a bad leg.

"Then there's all the Thomas women. They have a big wagon, or they did before the men came and
burned it." She started crying.

I was certain she was talking about the roaming gangs. Lots of people didn't want to leave anything the
Shardies might be able to use. Senseless, that. Shardies could care less, but most civilians wouldn't know
that. Best destroy what you left behind, they'd probably thought, and had taken their anger out on things
they could reach.

"Mr. Robbarts said we didn't have to worry because we weren't soldiers. He said we'd have the whole
world to ourselves. But after everybody left, Paw got really afraid of what might happen."

Robbarts must be the leader of this group. "Robbarts was wrong, Becky. You all should have left," I
said. "Didn't they tell you that it wouldn't matter if you were a soldier or not? Being human is all that
matters."

"Mr. Robbarts got real mad when Paw argued with him and said he wanted to use the mayday thing.
Then Paw and the boys and me ran away with it. You got to go along this stream for a bit now," she
directed.

That explained the burst message that told us there were people left behind. They must have used one of
the emergency broadcast units the evacuation team had scattered across New Mars in the last days, just
in case. "What happened then?" I asked as I followed her pointing finger down the stream. The scouts
picked up my changed direction and reacted,

"They told Paw to come out of the cave to talk," Becky continued, chatting away. "Paw told me to hide.
Then I heard them arguing and shouting and I got really afraid. Then there was some shots. I heard the
men looking around.

Mr. Robbarts was cussing a lot and calling me all sorts of names, but I stayed where I was. I was