"Michael Z. Williamson - Freehold 3 - Better to Beg Forgiveness" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williamson Michael Z)

time, youthful troops were valuable in part because of their need to prove themselves. They could be
prevailed upon to perform suicidally dangerous tasks, and sometimes survive. Older, more cynical
personnel were not so image driven. Not that Alex intended to waste the kid cavalierly, but if heroics
were called for, it was Anderson he was going to call upon to jump on the grenade.

For now they were en route to Celadon and casually dressed. Much of this contract would be in suits, in
limos and offices but it would also be outside at times, though, and Mahore, the capital of Celadon, was
in a tropical latitude near sea level. It ran warm and muggy. Vaughn and Anderson fit suits right off the
rack and looked great, wonderfully photogenic. Elke needed hers tailored, but with her short, fluffy hair
and fine features she looked like an executive or a personal assistant, not a bloodthirsty bitch with kilos of
high explosive. Weil needed suits specially made and bulged out of them, looking like some legbreaker
with his broad features and chest. Mbuto just looked silly in them. He looked comfortable and
respectable in shorts or casual clothes, and even in robes or ritual garb that would fit Carnivale, but a suit
on him was out of place. Alex in a suit was just a guy in a suit.


That rogue's gallery effect was another useful feature of his team. Hide the discipline and weapons, look
like showpieces, and be prepared to deal out wholesale death if there was a problem.

He turned his attention back to the shifting landscape below. The Broadwing aircraft had a stately,
fuel-efficient speed and flew at a low enough altitude to allow a good view. That wasn't intentional, but
Alex and Jason were both taking advantage of it now.

The landscape was patchy jungle of mixed Earth and native growth, with farms, ranches, and mines
hacked out geometrically here and there.

"Fewer roads even than the Hinterlands on Grainne," Jason said without looking in.

"Mostly hardpan dirt, some fused. I don't see the highway."

"It is not visible from here," Bart said, indicating the map screen.

Things looked slightly odd in the orange-tinged light of Bonner Durchmusterung +56°2966, which was
far too complex a name for a very unremarkable K3 star. Many settled people just called their local star
"the sun." Some had shortened versions of the star's Earth name, like the Grainne Colony, which called
Iota Persei "Io." But "Bon" or "Durch" wouldn't work well. That was a catalog name. The declination
number or whatever it was wouldn't work. Here, for some reason, the star was locally known as "Bob."
There was no figuring that, so Alex watched the terrain.

Scattered villages dotted the farm areas, or sprouted around crossroads. There were few towns. Little
of the local life was compatible with Earth life. That was good and bad. Bad, because it meant nothing
local was edible. It also meant, in this case, that the pheromone- and smell-driven local predators took
no interest in Earth life. The only threats were those man brought along, mostly himself. Not that his team
should ever be stopping in the remoter areas, but it never hurt to scout things out.

The buildings in the settlements were prefabs and huts of native materials. Prefabs marked the "official"
buildings and those sponsored by investment. Peasants had huts. Sunlight, or Boblight, was polarized by
and reflected from water bodies, but not from glass or metal structures, or polished plastic. There weren't
any. This place had started drab and run-down and then slid.