"Anderson, Poul - Queen Of Air & Darkness" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anderson Poul)

I never acquired the habit myself, and I don't want a hireling disarranging
my tools. More convenient to work out of my apartment than keep a
separate office. Won't you be seated?"
"No, thanks. I couldn't," she mumbled.

"I understand. But if you'll excuse me, I function best in a relaxed
position."

He jackknifed into a lounger. One long shank crossed the other knee.
He drew forth a pipe and stuffed it from a pouch. Barbro wondered why
he took tobacco in so ancient a way. Wasn't Beowulf supposed to have
the up-to-date equipment that they still couldn't afford to build on
Roland? Well, of course old customs might survive anyhow. They
generally did in colonies, she remembered reading. People had moved
starward in the hope of preserving such outmoded things as their
mother tongues or constitutional government or rational-technological
civilization ....

Sherrinford pulled her up from the confusion of her weariness. "You
must give me the details of your case, Mrs. Cullen. You've simply told
me your son was kidnapped and your local constabulary did nothing.
Otherwise, I know just a few obvious facts, such as your being widowed
rather than divorced; and you're the daughter of outwayers in Olga
lvanoff Land who, nevertheless, kept in close telecommunication with
Christmas Landing; and you're trained in one of the biological
professions; and you had several years' hiatus in field work until
recently you started again."

She gaped at the high-cheeked, beak-nosed, black-haired and gray-eyed
countenance. His lighter made a scrit and a flare which seemed to fill the
room. Quietness dwelt on this height above the city, and winter dusk
was seeping through the windows. "How in cosmos do you know that?"
she heard herself exclaim.

He shrugged and fell into the lecturer's manner for which he was
notorious. "My work depends on noticing details and fitting them
together. In more than a hundred years on Roland, tending to cluster
according to their origins and thought habits, people have developed
regional accents. You have a trace of the Olgan burr, but you nasalize
your vowels in the style of this area, though you live in Portolondon-
That suggests steady childhood exposure to metropolitan speech. You
were part of Matsuyama's expedition, you told me, and took your boy
along. They wouldn't have allowed any ordinary technician to do that;
hence, you had to be valuable

enough to get away with it. The team was conducting ecological'
research; therefore, you must be in the life sciences. For the same
reason, you must have had previous field experience. But your skin is
fair, showing none of the leatheriness one gets from prolongedexposure
to this sun. Accordingly, you must have been mostly