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mat-ter what the experience, the liability laws firmly estab-lished.
Suddenly, she felt a deep longing for what was happening on the planet below the cloakedShell, the
screams of triumph, the hot reek of pouring acid-splash, the dance with the blade. The Hunt, that she'd
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never know again, and not because she'd chosen to turn away. She'd been cheated, systematically worn
down and forced out, it wasn't fair and she hated them for taking her very life from her.
Noguchi limped slowly to her quarters, wanting nothing more than to sleep for a while.
15
Kelly Irwin was pleasantly sur-prised to hear a familiar voice coming up from Bunda, particularly after
taking orders from Dickhead Briggs for the last couple of weeks not to mention fending off his man
Keene, the walking steroid. It was enough to make a girl want to get shit-faced drunk, and her only hope
for Bunda was that the science boys had a stash of something or other put aside for emergencies.
She'd sent a standard comp alert to the station and had already dropped the lux Sun Jumper into the
up-per reaches, the planet a dark blur beneath them, be-fore she made vocal contact. The necessary info
had been shot back and forth and triple-checked via the Herriman-Weston PC, but Irwin liked the
personal Touch, always had. Sun Jumpers were so state that she was bored, the auto self-rnonitoring and
IFTDS making it about as complicated to fly as a paper plane.
Stifling a yawn, Irwin put in the call, watching the fly-by-light with only half an eye.
"Bunda survey, this is WY-1117 requesting confir-mation of landing clearance, come back." The planet
looked pretty in the early starlight, at least, lots of greenery. She was a city girl herself, but nature made a
nice backdrop.
"WY-1117, you're cleared for Three . . . Irwin, is that you?"
She grinned, suddenly awake. She recognized Matt Windy's soft tones, the clipped way he said her
name. He'd been training in communications and pattern control at the same WY program she'd gotten
her li-cense from, Earthside.Buddha, how long's it been? Six, seven years?
"I'll be dipped! Windy, I didn't know you was working the outskirts. What'd you do, piss in some-one's
drink?"
He laughed. "Hey, Company pays top to anyone willing to leave the known universe, don't knock it.
What's your excuse?"
"Playing chauffeur, thanksso much for reminding me. Anyway, gets me off of the merch runs, nice change
of pace," Irwin said. "At least usually . . ."
Windy laughed again. "Usually? Don't tell me you're not enjoying aJumper, that's some kind of pilot
sacrilege, isn't it?"
Irwin grinned again. "Actually, Iam getting bored, but it's more the suit, this time. Briggs, Lucas. A real
tight-ass. He's been after me to bend the laws of physics since Zen's Respite andno, I was not allowed
to enjoy any of the Company amenities, so shut the fuck up."
When Windy spoke again, some of the humor had bled from his voice. "Hey . . . you know what all this
is about? The Assman won't "
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Irwin interrupted, smiling. "Assman?"
"ASM, you twit. Vincent."
Cute, she hadn't heard that one. "Anyway, you were saying?"
Windy pitched his voice even lower. "He won't tell us what's going on. Shuttle lands thisa.m., he says it
comes from XT, but no way they've got chambers on
that thing, and the heads up we got says it happened days ago. So they can't be carrying, right?"
Irwin glanced at the cabin screen before she an-swered. Everyone was still belted, though Briggs looked
constipated as usual, shifting in his seat. Who-ever was on that shuttle, he wanted 'embad.
"Got me," she said quietly. "Don't ask, don't tell, you know? It's big, though. This guy's hooked up, had
the full service at Zen, priority calls on scramble, two hunks of meat in suits following him to the head,
with wipes. And keep shut on this, but we left Zen's Respite yesterday, dig? Before your ASM put in the
call. You wanna make some points, tell him to get his ass out on that deck."
"He's been out there for the last twenty minutes, since your comp signal," Windy said. "Assman's
sweat-ing on this, and I don't blame him."
While they were talking, the Sun Jumper had dropped to an LZ alt, the dark treetops spinning be-neath
them like a corrugated sea. At the edge of her vi-sion, Irwin thought she saw a flash of light somewhere
deep in the jungle. It was gone before she could finish turning her head, but it reminded her that she
wasn't getting paid to actually enjoy herself. Time to pay at-tention.
"Listen, gotta fly," she said. "You still gonna be on channels after we land?"
"Affirmative."
"Meet you in ten, then," she said, and tapped off the 'com, calling up a list of stats in the same [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]