"Christopher Stasheff - Warlock 01 - Escape Velocity" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stasheff Christopher)

Warlock Series
Escape Velocity

Chapter 1

She was a girl. Dar knew it the moment he saw her.

That wasn't as easy as it sounds. Really. Considering that she was shaved bald and was wearing a
baggy gray flannel coverall, Dar was doing pretty well to identify her as human, let alone female.
It would've been a much better bet that she was a department-store mannequin in one of those
bags that are put on them between outfits, to protect them in case somebody with a plastic fetish
comes along.

But she moved. That's how Dar knew she was human.

And he was just in from a six-week trading tour and was just about to go out on another one
(Cholly, the boss, was shorthanded this month; one of his traders had been caught shaving
percentage points with Occam's Razor). Which meant, since the Wolmar natives didn't allow
their womenfolk to meet strangers, that for the last six weeks Dar had seen things that were
human, and things that were female, but never both at the same time; so he was in a prime state to
recognize a girl if one happened along.

This one didn't "happen"-she strode. She nearly swaggered, and she stepped down so hard that
Dar suspected she was fighting to keep her hips from rolling. It sort of went with the gray
jumpsuit, bald head, and lack of makeup.

She sat down on a bar stool, and waited. And waited. And waited.

The reason she waited so long was that Cholly was alone behind the bar today and was discussing
the nature of reality with a corporal; he wasn't about to give up a chance at a soldier.

Not that the girl seemed to mind. She was ostentatiously not looking at the two privates at the
other end of the bar. but her ears fairly twitched in their direction.

"He never had a chance," the gray-haired one burbled around his cigar. "He but scarcely looked
up, and whap! I had him!"

"Took him out good and proper, hey?" The blond grinned.

"Out! I should say! So far out he an't niver coming back! Mark my words, he'll buy the farm! Buy
it for me yet, he will!"

The girl's lips pinched tight, and her throat swelled the way someone's does when they can't hold
it in anymore and it's just got to bust loose; and Dar figured he'd better catch it, 'cause the soldiers
wouldn't understand.
But Dar would. After six weeks without women, he was ready to understand anything, provided
it came from a female.

So he sidled up to lean on the bar, neatly intersecting her line of sight, smiled with all the
sincerity he could dredge up, and chirped, "Service is really slow around here, isn't it?"