Pokrewne

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Chelsea Handler Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang (epub
Brit Brinson [Dia of the Dead Dia of the Dead (epub)
Cody Goodfellow [Radiant Dawn Radiant Dawn (epub)
Cate Tiernan [Immortal Belove Immortal Beloved (epub)
C J Busby [Deep Amber 01] Deep Amber (retail) (epub)
Carl Ashmore [Time Hunters 01 The Time Hunters (epub)
Drew Hayes [Super Powereds 02 Super Powereds Year 2 (epub) i
Beth Harbison [Shoe Addict 02 Secrets of a Shoe Addict (epub)
Cara Lynn Shultz [Dark World The Dark World (retail) (epub)
Chandra Ryan [Universal Defia Hostile Intent [EC Aeon MMF] (e

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.Where shall I take you?”“With—you,” she murmured.He stared down into the flat green eyes.Those ceaselessly pulsing pupils disturbed him, but it seemed to him, vaguely, that behind the animal shallows of her gaze was a shutter—a closed barrier that might at any moment open to reveal the very deeps of that dark knowledge he sensed there.Roughly he said again, “Come on, then,” and stepped down into the street.She pattered along a pace or two behind him, making no effort to keep up with his long strides, and though Smith—as men know from Venus to Jupiter’s moons—walks as softly as a cat, even in spaceman’s boots, the girl at his heels slid like a shadow over the rough pavement, making so little sound that even the lightness of his footsteps was loud in the empty street.Smith chose the less frequented ways of Lakkdarol, and somewhat shamefacedly thanked his nameless gods that his lodgings were not far away, for the few pedestrians he met turned and stared after the two with that by now familiar mingling of horror and contempt which he was as far as ever from understanding.The room he had engaged was a single cubicle in a lodging-house on the edge of the city.Lakkdarol, raw camptown that it was in those days, could have furnished little better anywhere within its limits, and Smith’s errand there was not one he wished to advertise.He had slept in worse places than this before, and knew that he would do so again.There was no one in sight when he entered, and the girl slipped up the stairs at his heels and vanished through the door, shadowy, unseen by anyone in the house.Smith closed the door and leaned his broad shoulders against the panels, regarding her speculatively.She took in what little the room had to offer in a glance—frowsy bed, rickety table, mirror hanging unevenly and cracked against the wall, unpainted chairs—a typical camptown room in an Earth settlement abroad.She accepted its poverty in that single glance, dismissed it, then crossed to the window and leaned out for a moment, gazing across the low roof-tops toward the barren countryside beyond, red slag under the late afternoon sun.“You can stay here,” said Smith abruptly, “until I leave town.I’m waiting here for a friend to come in from Venus.Have you eaten?”“Yes,” said the girl quickly.“I shall—need no—food for—a while.”“Well—” Smith glanced around the room.“I’ll be in sometime tonight.You can go or stay just as you please.Better lock the door behind me.”With no more formality than that he left her.The door closed and he heard the key turn, and smiled to himself.He did not expect, then, ever to see her again.He went down the steps and out into the late-slanting sunlight with a mind so full of other matters that the brown girl receded very quickly into the background.Smith’s errand in Lakkdarol, like most of his errands, is better not spoken of.Man lives as he must, and Smith’s living was a perilous affair outside the law and ruled by the ray-gun only.It is enough to say that the shipping-port and its cargoes outbound interested him deeply just now, and that the friend he awaited was Yarol the Venusian, in that swift little Edsel ship the Maid that can flash from world to world with a derisive speed that laughs at Patrol boats and leaves pursuers floundering in the ether far behind.Smith and Yarol and the Maid were a trinity that had caused the Patrol leaders much worry and many gray hairs in the past, and the future looked very bright to Smith himself that evening as he left his lodging-house.Lakkdarol roars by night, as Earthmen’s camptowns have away of doing on every planet where Earth’s outposts are, and it was beginning lustily as Smith went down among the awakening lights toward the center of town.His business there does not concern us.He mingled with the crowds where the lights were brightest, and there was the click of ivory counters and the jingle of silver, and red segir gurgled invitingly from black Venusian bottles, and much later Smith strolled homeward under the moving moons of Mars, and if the street wavered a little under his feet now and then—why, that is only understandable.Not even Smith could drink red segir at every bar from the Martian Lamb to the New Chicago and remain entirely steady on his feet.But he found his way back with very little difficulty—considering—and spent a good five minutes hunting for his key before he remembered he had left it in the inner lock for the girl.He knocked then, and there was no sound of footsteps from within, but in a few moments the latch clicked and the door swung open.She retreated soundlessly before him as he entered, and took up her favorite place against the window, leaning back on the sill and outlined against the starry sky beyond.The room was in darkness.Smith flipped the switch by the door and then leaned back against the panels, steadying himself.The cool night air had sobered him a little and his head was clear enough—liquor went to Smith’s feet, not his head, or he would never have come this far along the lawless way he had chosen.He lounged against the door now and regarded the girl in the sudden glare of the bulbs, blinding a little as much at the scarlet of her clothing as at the light.“So you stayed,” he said.“I—waited,” she answered softly, leaning farther back against the sill and clasping the rough wood with slim, three-fingered hands, pale brown against the darkness.“Why?”She did not answer that, but her mouth curved into a slow smile.On a woman it would have been reply enough—provocative, daring.On Shambleau there was something pitiful and horrible in it—so human on the face of one half-animal.And yet … that sweet brown body curving so softly from the tatters of scarlet leather—the velvety texture of that brownness—the white-flashing smile … Smith was aware of a stirring excitement within him.After all—time would be hanging heavy now until Yarol came … Speculatively he allowed the steel-pale eyes to wander over her, with a slow regard that missed nothing.And when he spoke he was aware that his voice had deepened a little …“Come here,” he said.She came forward slowly, on bare clawed feet that made no slightest sound on the floor, and stood before him with downcast eyes and mouth trembling in that pitifully human smile.He took her by the shoulders—velvety soft shoulders, of a creamy smoothness that was not the texture of human flesh.A little tremor went over her, perceptibly, at the contact of his hands.Northwest Smith caught his breath suddenly and dragged her to him … sweet yielding brownness in the circle of his arms … heard her own breath catch and quicken as her velvety arms closed about his neck.And then he was looking down into her face, very near, and the green animal eyes met his with the pulsing pupils and the flicker of—something—deep behind their shallows—and through the rising clamor of his blood, even as he stooped his lips to hers, Smith felt something deep within him shudder away—inexplicable, instinctive, 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