"Barrayar 00 - Quaddies 01 - Falling Free" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bujold Lois McMaster)

How incomprehensible, thought Silver, for a man that old. Ti must be at least twenty-five, much older than Tony, who was nearly the eldest of them all. She was careful to float facing the window, so that the pilot had his back to it. Come on, Tony, do it if you're going to. ...
A cool draft from the ventilators raised goose bumps on all her arms, and Silver shivered.
"Chilly?" Ti asked solicitously, and rubbed his hands up and down her arms rapidly to warm them by friction, then retrieved her blue shirt and shorts from the side of the room where they had drifted. Silver shrugged into them gratefully. The pilot dressed too, and Silver watched with covert fascination as he fastened his shoes. Such inflexible, heavy coverings, but then feet were inflexible, heavy things in their own right. She hoped he'd be careful how he swung them around. Shod, his feet reminded her of mallets. Ti, smiling, unhooked his flight bag from a wall rack where he had stowed it when they'd retreated to the control booth half an hour earlier. "Gotcha something."
Silver perked up, and her four hands clasped each other hopefully. "Oh! Were you able to find any more book-discs by the same lady?"
"Yes, here you go-" Ti produced some thin squares of plastic from the inner reaches of his flight bag. "Three titles, all new."
Silver pounced on them and read their labels eagerly. Rainbow Illustrated Romances: Sir Randan's Folly, Love in the Gazebo, Sir Randan and the Bartered Bride, all by Valeria Virga. "Oh, wonderful!" She wrapped her upper right arm around Ti's neck and gave him a quite spontaneous and vigorous kiss. He shook his head in mock despair. "I don't know how you can read that dreck. I think the author is a committee, anyway."
"It's great!" Silver defended her beloved literature indignantly. "It's so, so full of color, and strange places and times-a lot of them are set on old Earth, way back when everybody was still downside-they're amazing. People kept animals all around them-these enormous creatures called horses actually used to carry them around on their backs. I suppose the gravity tired people out. And these rich people, like-like company executives, I guess-called 'lords' and 'nobles' lived in the most fantastic habitats, stuck to the surface of the planet-and there was nothing about all this in the history we were taught!" Her indignation peaked.
"That stuff's not history, though," he objected. "It's fiction."
"It's nothing like the fiction they give us, either. Oh, it's all right for the little kids-I used to love The Little Compressor That Could-we made our creche-mother read it over and over. And the Bobby BX-99 series was all right . . . Bobby BX-99 Solves the Excess Humidity Mystery . . . Bobby BX-99 and the Plant Virus ... it was then I asked to specialize in Hydroponics. But downsiders are ever so much more interesting to read about. It's so-so-when I'm reading this," she clutched the little plastic squares tightly, "it's like they're real, and I'm not." Silver sighed hugely.
Although perhaps Mr. Van Atta was a bit like Sir Randan . . . high of status, commanding, short-tempered. . . . Silver wondered briefly why short temper in Sir Randan always seemed so exciting and attractive, full of fascinating consequences. When Mr. Van Atta became angry, it merely made her sick to her stomach. Perhaps downsider women had more courage.
Ti shrugged baffled amusement. "Whatever turns you on, I guess. Can't see the harm in it. But I brought something better for you, this trip-" he rummaged in his flight bag again, and shook out a froth of ivory fabric, intricate lace and ribbony satin. "I figured you could wear a regular woman's blouse all right. It's got flowers in the pattern, thought you'd like that, being in hydroponics and all."
"Oh ..." One of Valeria Virga's heroines might have been at home in such a garment. Silver reached for it, drew her hand back. "But-but I can't take it"
"Why not? You take the book-discs. It wasn't that expensive."
Silver, who felt she was beginning to have a fairly clear idea of how money worked from her reading, shook her head. "It's not that. It's, well-you know, I don't think Dr. Yei would approve of our meeting like this. Neither would-would a lot of other people." Actually, Silver was fairly sure that "disapprove" would barely begin to cover the consequences should her secret transactions with Ti be found out. "Prudes," scoffed Ti. "You're not going to let them start telling you what to do now, are you?" But his scorn was tinged with anxiety.
"I'm not going to start telling them what I am doing either," said Silver pointedly. "Are you?" "God, no," he waved his hands in horrified negation. "So, we are in agreement. Unfortunately, that," she pointed regretfully at the blouse, "is something I can't hide. I couldn't wear it without someone demanding that I explain where I got it."
"Oh," he said, in the blunted tone of one struck by incontrovertable fact. "Yeah, I-guess I should have thought of that. Do you suppose you could put it away for a time? I've only been taking my gravity leaves on the Rodeo side because all the shuttle bonus berths at Orient IV get nailed by the senior guys. Well, and you can log a lot more hours here I faster, with all the freight hauling. But I'll have my shuttle commander's rating and be back to permanent Jump status in just a few more cycles."
"It can't be shared, either," said Silver. "You see, the thing about the books and the vid dramas and lings, besides being small and easy to hide, is that they can be passed all around the group without being used up. Nobody gets left out. So I can get, um, a lot of cooperation when I want to, say-get away for a little time by myself?" A toss of her head indicated the privacy they were presently enjoying.
"Ah," gulped Ti. He paused. "I-hadn't realized you were passing the stuff around."
"Not share?" said Silver. "That would be really wrong." She stared at him in mild offense, and pushed the blouse back toward him on the surge of the emotion, quickly, before she weakened. She almost explained further, then thought better of it.
Best Ti didn't know about the uproar when one of the book-discs, accidently left in a viewer, had been found by one of the Habitat's downsider staff and turned over to Dr. Yei. The search-barely alerted, they had scrambled successfully to hide the rest of the contraband library, but the fierce intensity of the search had been warning enough to Silver of how serious was her offense in the eyes of her authorities.
There had been two more surprise inspections since, even though no more discs had been found. She could take a hint.
Mr. Van Atta himself had taken her aside-her!-and urged her to spy out the leak for him among her comrades. She had started to confess, stopped just in time, as his rising rage tightened her throat with fear. "I'm going to crucify the little sneak when I get my hands on him," Van Atta had snarled. Maybe Ti would not find Mr. Van Atta and Dr. Yei and all their staffs ranked together so intimidating-but she dared not risk losing her one sure source of downsider delights. Ti at least was willing to barter for what was in effect a bit of Silver's labor, the one invisible commodity not accounted for in any inventory; who knew, another pilot might want things of some kind, far more difficult to smuggle out of the Habitat unnoticed.
A long-awaited movement in the loading area caught her eye. And you thought you were risking trouble for a few books, Silver thought to herself. Wait'll this shit gets on the loose. . . .
"Thank you anyway," said Silver hastily, and grabbed Ti around the neck for a prolonged thank-you kiss. He closed his eyes-wonderful reflex, that-and Silver rolled hers toward the view out the control booth window. Tony, Claire, and Andy were just disappearing into the shuttle hatch flex tube.
There, thought Silver, that's it. I've done what I can-the rest is up to you. Good luck, double-luck. And more sharply, I wish I was going with you.
"Oof! Look at the time!" Ti broke off their embrace. "I've got to get this checklist completed before Captain Durrance gets back. Guess you're right about the shirt," he stuffed it unceremoniously back into his flight bag, "what do you want me to bring you next time?"
"Siggy in Airsystems Maintenance asked me if there were any more holovids in the Ninja of the Twin Stars series," Silver said promptly. "He's up to Number 7, but he's missing 4 and 5."
"Ah," said Ti "now that was decent entertainment. Did you watch them yourself?"
"Yes," Silver wrinkled her nose, "but I'm not sure-the people in them did such horrible things to one another-they are fiction, you say?"
"Well, yes."
"That's a relief."
"Yes, but what would you like for yourself?" he | persisted. "I'm not risking reprimand to gratify Siggy, whoever he is. Siggy doesn't have your," he sighed in remembered pleasure, "dear double-jointed hips."
Silver fanned out the three new book cards in her |lower right hand. "More, please, sir."
"If it's dreck you want," he captured each of her hands in turn and kissed their palms, "it's dreck you shall have. Uh, oh, here comes my fearless captain," Ti hastily straightened his shuttle pilot's uniform, turned up the light level, and picked up his report panel as an airseal door at the far end of the loading bay swished open. "He hates being saddled with junior Jumpers. Tadpoles, he calls us. I think he's uncomfortable because on my Jumpship, I'd outrank him. Still, better not give the old guy something to pick on . . ."
Silver made the book cards disappear into her work bag and took up the pose of an idle bystander as Captain Durrance, the shuttle commander, floated into the control booth.
"Snap it up, Ti, we've had a change of itinerary," said Captain Durrance. "Yes, sir. What's up?" "We're wanted downside."
"Hell," Ti swore mildly. "What a pain. I had a hot date lined-er," his eye fell on Silver, "was supposed to meet a friend for dinner tonight at the Transfer Station."
"Fine," said Captain Durrance, ironically unsympathetic. "File a complaint with Employee Relations, your work schedule is interfering with your love life. Maybe they can arrange that you not have a work schedule."
Ti took the hint, and moved hastily out to continue his duties as a Habitat technician arrived to take over the loading bay control booth.
Silver made herself small in a corner, frozen in horror and confusion. At the Transfer Station, Tony and Claire had planned to stow away on a Jump ship for Orient IV, get beyond the reach of GalacTech, find work when they got there; a horribly risky plan, in Silver's estimation, a measure of their desperation. Claire had been terrified, but at last persuaded by Tony's plan of carefully thought-out stages. At least, the first stages had been carefully thought-out; they had seemed to get vaguer, farther away from Rodeo and home. They had not planned on a downside detour in any version.
Tony and Claire had surely hidden themselves by now in the shuttle's cargo bay. There was no way for Silver to warn them-should she betray them to save them? The ensuing uproar was guaranteed to be ghastly-her dismay wrapped like a steel band around her chest, constricting breathing, constricting speech.
She watched on the control booth's vid display in miserable paralysis as the shuttle kicked away from the Habitat and began to drop toward Rodeo's swirling atmosphere.

Chapter 4
The dim cargo bay seemed to groan all around Claire as deceleration strained its structure. Buffeting, accompanied by a hissing whistle, vibrated through the shuttle's metal skin.
"What's wrong?" gasped Claire. She released an anchoring hand upon the plastic crate behind which they had hidden to double her grasp of Andy and hold him closer. "Are we sideswiping something? What's that funny noise?"
Tony hurriedly licked a ringer and held it out. "No draft to speak of." He swallowed, testing his eustachican tubes. "We're not depressurizing." Yet the whistle was rising.
Two mechanical ka-chunks, one after the other, that were nothing at all like the familiar thump and click of a hatch seal seating itself properly, shot terror through Claire. The deceleration went on and on, much too long, confused by a strange new vector of thrust that seemed to emanate from the shuttle's ventral side. The side of the cargo bay to which the crates were anchored seemed to push against her. She nervously put her back to it, and cushioned Andy upon her belly.
The baby's eyes were round, his mouth an echoing "o" of bewilderment. No, please, don't start crying! She dared not release the cry locked in her own throat; it would set him off like a siren. "Patty cake, patty cake, baker's man," Claire choked. "Microwave a cake as fast as you can ..." She tickled his cheek, flicking her eyes at Tony in mute appeal.
Tony's face was white. "Claire-I think this shuttle's going downside! I bet those bangs were the airfoils deploying."