"Dafydd ab Hugh, Brad Linaweawer DOOM: Hell on Earth (english)" - читать интересную книгу автора

you a lesson. At such times, it is advisable to carry an
equalizer."
"Like this?" Arlene asked, bending down to re-
trieve an AB-10 machine pistol, her personal fave.
Every little bit helps.
"If my friend had one of those in her purse—" I
began, but Arlene interrupted.
"Too long to get it out. I like to carry on my
person."
"Yeah, yeah. I was about to say if she had carried,
she might be alive today."
Arlene stopped rummaging through the contents of
a UAC crate and looked up. "Oh, Fly, I'm sorry."
"Sometimes you get the lesson only one time, and
it's pass-fail." I playfully poked the air in her direc-
tion. "Welcome back," I said.
"What do you mean?" she asked, squinting at me
the way she always did when I made her defensive.
"You can feel again, dear."
"Oh," she said, her body becoming more relaxed.
"You're right. One person means something. Well,
sometimes . . . if there aren't too many one persons."
"One's real. There's the body on the floor. A
million is just a statistic, no matter how much
screaming the professional mourner does."
She punched the air back at me. And she smiled.
We didn't talk for a little while. We continued gather-
ing goodies en route to the shed. It didn't take long to
locate; the good news was that it was large and
apparently well-stocked. It would take days to go
through all the crates and boxes; but if the labels on
the outside were accurate, we'd discovered a much
larger inventory of parts than I would have imagined
necessary for Deimos Base.
The bad news was a complete absence of ships in
any state of assembly. There was nothing to fly!
"Well jeez, I thought it was a great idea," said
Arlene. "Too bad it flopped."
Somehow it seemed immoral to give up hope while
standing inside Santa's workshop. I began examining
some of the boxes while Arlene kicked one across the
room; but that didn't bother me, she was never meant
for the modern age she was born into. She'd have been
more homey as a freebooter in the days of blood and
iron, when one physically competent woman did
enough in her lifetime to breed legends of lost,
Amazonian races of warrior queens. She had guts; she
had cold steel will. She didn't have patience, but what
the hell!
I didn't think I would face death as well as she. I'd