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they saw walked in a trudging, downcast gait. The reason was the parade of sec
network men and women, wearing drab overcoats and toting old Kalashnikov
autorifles. The sec agents gave them and their wag hard, piercing stares as they
rolled by, but said nothing.
Still, their attention made Kane nervous. He didn't think much of Brigid's
provisional plan to pretend they were network operatives themselves. "They'll be
tailing us right to the rail station," he told her. "We need to get ourselves lost."
"If that's where Sverdlovosk will be," she replied, "that's where we need to be.
He helped me get out of Mongolia alive."
"And he might help all of us get dead here in Russia."
"He's the only lead we have," she retorted doggedly.
Grant said, "We're foreigners, hated Americans. We're here to spy, remember?
That's not exactly a well-respected pastime in any country."
Brigid frowned. "My feeling my instinct is that whatever Sverdlovosk and
maybe even Ivornich are up to in the Gobi, it has very little to do with the good
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Axler, James - Outlanders 02 - Destiny Run
of the state."
Kane opened his mouth to voice an objection, then shut it again. He often relied
on his instincts to decide on a certain course of action. In fact, obeying his
instincts had resulted in all of their exiles from Cobaltville. He exchanged a
quick look with Grant. By the wry half smile on the big man's face, Kane figured
he was remembering the same thing.
He sighed in resignation. "All right, Baptiste. You speak the lingo, you met the
bastard. Your call. For now."
Vendors opened up food stalls, and the primary items seemed to be vegetables,
particularly potatoes. A few merchants sold small household items, and the
prices posted on everything made no sense to any of them, even Brigid. Overall,
the Nikulino Street Marketplace reminded Kane and Grant of the Tartarus Pits.
Both of them became slightly wistful with nostalgia.
The wag came abreast of a lot enclosed by a split-rail corral. Inside the crude
fence milled livestock sheep, goats, pigs, a few cows and a couple of horses.
The air was redolent with the rich aroma of manure. A beefy man wearing a
leather apron and a wool cap pulled down low over his head whistled and
gestured to them.
"Stop," Brigid directed Grant. "Here's where we can ditch this rig and get a little
spending capital."
Grant reined the cart to a halt at the curb, and Brigid hopped out speaking to the
burly man. He uttered a few grunts and walked around the horse, studying its
withers, the hooves, peeling back its upper lip to inspect the animal's teeth. Grant
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Axler, James - Outlanders 02 - Destiny Run
noticed the man had no ears beneath his stocking cap, only hacked-off nubbins
with bits of fleshy lobe attached.
He and Brigid began talking, the man punctuating his side of the bargaining with
energetic gestures. Kane saw one of the overcoated sec men standing across the
lane, watching and listening to the exchange with great interest. Sidling up to
Brigid, he murmured, "We've got no time for this. Whatever he offers, take it."
Brigid shot him a steely glare, but ducked her head and held out a hand. The
beefy man immediately produced a roll of paper currency from an apron pocket
and counted out ten notes. They were printed on a fibrous wood pulp and
absurdly colored, featuring a badly out of register engraving of a stern, fatherly
man with a white beard.
Grant climbed off the cart, gave the horse a farewell pat and the three of them
walked away. Brigid riffled through the bills. "He would have paid more, you
know."
"You're as bad as a Pit jolt merchant," Kane snapped. "No matter what he paid, it
was still a clear profit."
Pocketing the money, she replied, "If I'd accepted his first offer, he would've
become suspicious."
Kane rolled his eyes. "But three officers of the Internal Security Network
haggling over the price of horseflesh is perfectly acceptable? We were being
watched, you know. If it's reported to Ivornich that we stopped to sell livestock
 "
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Axler, James - Outlanders 02 - Destiny Run
"We'll deal with that when or if we have to," Grant interrupted. "Let's find
the railway station."
The avenues opened up, became broader. People were beginning to file into the
market district, and they seemed to be of every shape, size and color, sporting
every kind of garb. Grant, Kane and Brigid mingled with them, deliberately
seeking crowds.
"A pretty diverse bunch," Grant commented.
"Russians were only one of over a hundred nationalities in the old Soviet
Union," Brigid said.
The building styles were as diverse as the population. Old buildings dating back
to well before skydark, newer ones that were throwbacks to earlier styles, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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