"Charles Stross - Duat" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

incongruously small penises spilling from a ventral pouch unsealed by death. Suddenly
the halberd was unbearably heavy. Oshi grounded its point, heedless of the risk of
damage, leaned against the wall and smeared at her face with a muck-splashed sleeve.
Screwing up her face she forced herself to weep for a moment: the tears helped clear the
ooze from her eyes. Vision returned, blurry and pink-stained at first. "Lucky," she
whispered, staring at the claws that grasped, the teeth that ground. "So lucky." A shudder
racked her, from the base of her spine to the nape of her neck: for a moment she felt
unbearably horny, dizzy with the eroticism of survival. "I'm so lucky ..."

Something scratched behind her. Reflexes made her whirl: weak muscles made her
stagger and stumble. The door on the right. She stared at it. It looked like something that
belonged in a dungeon: thick wood bound in black iron, secured -- ominously, in the
corridor -- by bolts evidently designed to withstand an assault from the other side. Silence.
Then, after a moment: scrit scrit scrit.

"Shit." Not so lucky any more. Forcing herself to lift her feet and glide like a vampire,
Oshi crossed over to the door and leaned against it. Total silence, total attention focussed
on it. All her senses kicked in: infra-red, touch, wisdom access --

There was someone behind the door. Someone with the standard upload nanomonitors,
and something else she didn't recognize. It certainly wasn't a Goon; not Anubis, either.
And the door locked on the outside.

Oshi didn't stop to think. " Hey." It was a short-range call over the wisdom link, an
electronic yell that would only be audible to the person on the other side of the door: "
who are you?"



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2: In the Duat

" Help me. Let me out of here. Please!"

She reached out and grabbed the halberd one-handed. She worked on the bolts with her
free hand: as the second one slid back, she caught up her weapon and levelled it, point
first, dropping to a crouch as the door swung inwards. The point wove in tiny circles
before her eyes; she was still jittery with adrenalin. She slowly relaxed as she saw that
there was no immediate threat. "Shit. What have they done to you?"

A short man, brown-skinned and bald, lay spread-eagled on a metal table. His arms and
legs were pinned out by restraining straps like a rat awaiting dissection. The fingers of one
hand were dark with blood where he'd been scraping them on the table's edge. Oshi took it
all in: the stone walls and ceiling like something out of a dark age, robosurgeon hovering
over the top of the table, cannulae winding into the veins of his neck like the roots of a
revoltingly hungry plant. He rolled his eyes at her: " I can't speak. There's a block on my
larynx. Please help --"

"Anubis's dirty little secret." She crossed over to him, leaned close to his face. As he saw
what she was carrying, what was smeared all over her, his hopeful expression faded