"David Weber - Dahak 03 - Heirs of Empire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weber David)

HEIRS OF EMPIRE

Chapter One
Sean MacIntyre skittered out of the transit shaft and adjusted his hearing as he dashed down the
passage. He shouldn't need to listen until he was on the other side of the hatch, but he still had more
trouble with his ears' bio-enhancement than with his eyes for some reason, and he preferred to get set
early.
He covered the last hundred meters, slid to a halt, and pressed his back against the bulkhead. The
wide, silent passage vanished into a gleaming dot in either direction, and he raked a hand through sweaty
black hair as his enhanced ears picked the pulsing sounds of environmental equipment and the soft hum
of the now-distant transit shaft from the slowing thunder of his pulse. He'd been chasing them for over an
hour, and he'd half-expected to be ambushed by now. He certainly would have tried it, he thought, and
sniffed disdainfully.
He drew his holstered pistol and turned to the hatch. It slid open—quietly to unenhanced ears, but
thunderous to his—and bright sunlight spilled out.
He slipped through the hatch and selected telescopic vision for his left eye. He kept his right adjusted
to normal ranges (he did lots better with his eyes than with his ears) and peered into the dappled
shadows of the whispering leaves.
Oaks and hickories drowsed under the "sun" as he slithered across the picnic area into the
gloss-green rhododendrons that ran down to the lake. He moved quietly, holding the pistol against his
chest two-handed, ready to whirl, point, and fire with all the snakelike quickness of his enhanced
reflexes, but search as he might, he heard and saw nothing except wind, birds, and the slop of small
waves.
He worked his way clear to the lake without finding a target, then paused in thought. The park deck,
one of many aboard the starship Dahak, was twenty-odd kilometers across. That was a big hiding place,
but Harriet was impatient, and she hated running away. She'd be lurking somewhere within a few
hundred meters, hoping to ambush him, and that meant—
Motion flickered, and he froze, vision zooming in on whatever had attracted it. He smiled as he saw a
flash of long, black hair duck back behind an oak, but he didn't scoot out after her. Now that he'd found
Harry, there was no way she could sneak away from her tree without his seeing her, and he swept his
eyes back and forth, searching for her ally. She'd be part of the ambush, too, so she had to be pretty
close. In fact, she should be . . .
A hand-sized patch of blue caught his eye, just visible between two laurels. Unlike Harry, it was
patiently and absolutely still, but he had them both now, and he grinned and began a slow, stealthy move
to his left. A few more meters and—
Zaaaaaaaaaaa-ting!
 Sean jerked in disbelief, then punched the ground and used a word his mother would not have
approved. The chime gave way to a raucous buzzing that ripped at his augmented hearing, and he
snatched his ears back to normal and stood resignedly.
The buzz from the laser-sensing units on his harness stopped at his admission of defeat, and he
turned, wondering how Harry had slipped around behind him. But it wasn't Harry, and he ground his
teeth as a diminutive figure splashed ashore. She'd shed her bright blue jacket (Sean knew exactly
where), and she was soaking wet, but her brown eyes blazed with delight.
"I got you!" she shrieked. "Sean's dead! Sean's dead, Harry!"
He managed not to use any more of his forbidden vocabulary when the eight-year-old ninja began an
impromptu war dance, but it was hard, especially when his twin threw herself into the dance with her
half-pint ally. Bad enough to lose to girls, but to be ambushed by Sandy MacMahan was insupportable.
She was two years younger than he, this was the first time she'd even been allowed to play, and she'd
killed him with her first shot!
"Your elation at Sean's death is scarcely becoming, Sandra." The deep, mellow voice coming from