"Anthony,.Piers.-.Mute (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anthony Susan)

My fur is sprung! Hermine thought, alarmed.

"It is discharging the electricity," Knot explained, for weasel and woman. "A harmless effectЧfor the moment. But if sparks start jumpingЧ"

There was a crackling. Jags of light struck upward from the trees. At first the displays were small and faint, but they soon grew more spectacular.

"I don't like this!" Finesse exclaimed, trying to pat her standing hair in place. A little aura of light showed where her hand approached her head. She resembled a remarkably cute witch with an uncharacteristic halo. "I'm sure it's playing havoc with my recording."

"That so?" Knot asked, not at all disgruntled by the news. "You mean you'll have no way to remember what is happening now?"

Oh ho! Hermine thought, projecting a fleeting vision of a predator closing in on prey.

Knot was startled. "Hermine sends pictures, too!"

"Of course she does," Finesse snapped, giving up on her hair. "Where is this cover we're headed for?"

"Just coming into sight ahead."

They ran on, each person radiating fat sparks. The whole landscape was blazing with the electrical discharges, and small lightning forks were jumping from the trees high into the sky before petering out in um-brellalike spreads. Knot was a good deal more alarmed than he cared to admit.

Me too, the weasel thought. But Mil says well make it. The cave is safe.

They did make it. They bundled into the cave mouth as if taking shelter from hail.

No farther! Hermine warned. Mit says it is safe only here at the edge.

"Thanks," Knot said aloud. It was easier to focus his thoughts when he engaged the vocalizing mechanism, and it let Finesse know what he was thinking too. Though he had no doubt he could learn readily enough to project without vocalizing or subvocalizing, at such time as he needed to. "The leadmuter gets excited by storms and
things and tries to transmute other substancesЧsuch as peopleЧinto lead. Doesn't work, but it's not too healthy eitherЧfor him or the subjects."

Finesse looked out at the electrical display, then into the passage leading to the leadmuter. She shuddered. "I'm not used to this sort of danger."

She's pretending, Hermine thought mischievously. She's tough as rats.

You're helping me against her? Knot thought, managing to avoid vocalization nicely.

It doesn't matter. There is no help for yon.

Hmm. "If I understand the situation correctly, there's no danger as long as we heed Mit," he said, uncertain himself.

"Yes, we must stay right here," she agreed.

"Of courseЧuntil the threat passes. But you know, it is hardly in my interest to keep you safe. What you have already recorded is enough to damn me."

"I didn't come here to damn you!" she protested. "CC needs your help."

What is her real interest? Knot asked Hermine, who had now climbed from Finesse's pocket and was prowling the cave.

She means to seduce you into joining CC.

Just as he thought. Finesse's first visit had been exploratory. The second was recruitment, and she had an obvious weapon. He recognized that, but remained vulnerable. She was really his enemy, but he would do a lot to obtain her goodwill. Ask Mit whether she will succeed.