"C. J. Cherryh - Fever SeasonUC - Compilation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cherryh C J)
"But 1 do. Ito put me in a trance so that I could experience a previous life, and I was this warrior in a space battle against the sharrh. It was so real. 1 was there. It was glorious. And I diedЧ"
"What?" Cassie tossed her brush to the vanity and came to stand before the bed. "You what? Ito what?"
"Don't act like you've never heard of a regression before. SurelyЧ"
"But I haven't." Lines appeared on her forehead, and then smoothed. "You'd better tell me everything, Michael, from the beginning."
And when he was done, she was lying in the crook of his arm with tears streaming down her face. At first he didn't understand her tears, but she said, "Ito was trying to do something terrible to you, Michael, but he did something wonderful instead. Instant karma of the best sort. You were meant to be my husband and bring this wonderful news to me. Oh, Michael, you remember a past life. How I wish 1 did."
"You can."
"No, I can't."
"1 remember how to do it. I remember what to say. Just get some deathangel, and we'll do it together."
She sprang up and straddled him. "You will? You promise? Oh, it's so wonderful. Wait till I tellЧ"
"You'd better not tell anyone, at least not your father or his friends. Not now. Or they won't let me help you find your past lives. Promise."
"I promise."
"Good," said Chamoun. "If it's so important to you, we'll do it tomorrow if we can get the deathangel."
"It's not as important to me as you are, husband and loverЧOfficer of the Census," whispered Cassie as she brought her lips down to cover his.
And the pleasure of that was so intense that it almostly completely blocked out the phantom he kept remembering, the vision he'd seen as he shook Mondragon's hand in farewell: Romanov's ghost, hovering over Mondragon's shoulder, in the stairwell that led to the Watergate.
There were some who'd never be counted in the Merovingen censusЧsome who never should be. And Michael Chamoun had just chosen his side publicly in whatever was coming. It was the side of Tatiana Boregy, by default. By Magruder's ultimatum. And, if Cassie and the rest of the Revenantists were right, by karmic debt.
Whatever the truth of it, Chamoun had a feeling Cassie's father was going to be about as pleased as Mondragon had been to hear his news. But he didn't have to sleep with Cassie's father.
And he didn't have to go out into the mist tonight, as pale Mondragon had just done, with Romanov's paler shade following close behind.
So he took his warm wife in his arms and closed his eyes and pretended that she was Rita Nikolaev, the forbidden nymph of his dreams, while about him Merovingians went on their secretive missions through the dark, cold night.
FEVER SEASON (REPRISED)
CJ. Cherryh
The wind was blowing a steady mist as the Boregy launch approached Nikolaev's slip on Rimmon Isle, a mist that spattered on the windshield and fractured the harbor lights beyond the shadow-shapes of Boregy crewman. Rita Nikolaev Shattered steadily about the weather and the winter, and asked Mondragon whether he was used to weather like this.
Of course. Because he was Faikenaer, to the Nikolaevs as to most everyone. Mondragon dragged his eyes back from the dark beyond the side-windows of the launch, his mind having wandered toward a certain Faikenaer ship and a small skip that might be out there on this unfriendly water, that bucked and pitched the powered launch and rattled cold mist on the canvas weather-canopy. A very small skip and a woman working solo tonight in the wide waters of the harbor, because she was damned stubborn and a damned fool.
"Very much so, m'sera. The Isles have very little to stop the wind."
So he had heard. He had little more notion than she did, what the Falken Isles were like.
"M'sera, because people are born there." He did not intend to be rude. He was aware of her sitting closer than the
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cabin space demanded, was aware of her trying to draw him out, perhaps for her own reasons, for Nikolaev's, who knew? Perhaps she was even Anastasi's, testing him, or being perverse, or trying to snare him romantically.
Who knew that either? He was exhausted. A day of back-and-forth between Boregy and Nikolaev had had him out in the weather more than he had planned: and the cold and the damp had gotten into his bones.
He still did not know what reception he had waiting at Nikolaev. He had thought he was throughЧlake a briefing from Vega Boregy, do an errand, see the Nikolaev daughter home, deliver the packet that he had tucked under his cloak, which contained, not coincidentally, a mortgage that Honesty Rajwade had yet to discover had been sold to Boregy and thus to Anastasi Kalugin; a minor thing, the purchase of a soulЧAnastasi traded in things like that. Mostly he had spent his day trying delicately to make contact with a very nervous younger cousin of Rosenblum, who had gambling debts; and who was willing to do anything to evade the wrath of his creditors.
Foul and filthy business. But it led into the Justiciary offices where Constancy Rosenbtum held a post. And ultimately to Rosenblum's willingness to work after hours making copies of documents, securing a flow of information that Rosenblum thought was going to an agent of Tatiana Kaiugin, and the blacklegs.
Let him commit himself. Then what Rosenblum found out he was into would be only one more lever against him. God help the poor bastard. Mondragon sneezed again, heard Rita Nikolaev chide him about night air, and wrapped his cloak about him as the launch nosed its way into the Nikolaev slip.
Beside a T>lack hull that cast back the light in faint glistening, and towered over them.
" 'Stasi's still here," Rita said, clutching his arm for steadiness as they got up. "Won't you come up to the house, Tom, have a little brandy?"
"Thanks, no, I have to get back."
He saw her ashore. He stood there wrapped in his cloak
while Nikolaev servants with lanterns came and retrieved m'sera and wended their way in a snake of lights up the steps that led to the Nikolaev mansion, on the edge of Rimmon Isle. He turned then and slipped into the shadow under the bow of the black yacht, and walked around the slip to the gangway, while the launch throttled up and backed, on its way back to Boregy without him.
He came up onto the high deck of the yacht and met challenge from the watch, instantly. But he had the right pass, a face and a voice they knew; and their orders let him below very quickly, into the companionway and into the warmth of Anastasi Kalugin's own shipboard quarters.
It was all red cushions and blue carpet and fine wood inside. Electrics burned, powered from the ship's generators. The man who owned it all was hardly more than thirty-five, pale-skinned, with a black, close beard. He did not resemble his auburn-haired sister Tatiana in the least; was probably not like his elder brother Michael either; losef Kalugin had had no wives, just offspring. Two too many of them. Anastasi wore a loose-sleeved tunic, black, with rubies at the collar; plain black trousers and boots; red embroidery on the belt, but minimal, everything a shade under flamboyant. It was his style in Kalugin. Or here. Or wherever he held court with his own adherents.
Anastasi had one servant, his doctor, losefЧsame name as his father. Which probably gave him a certain pleasure. And losef stayed during all interviews, a shadow in the peripheries: Mondragon had ceased to be anxious about him, only knew that he was there.
"Do you have it?" Anastasi asked.
f "I brought everything," Mondragon said, and carefully took the packet from under his cloak, knowing that losef s hand was momentarily out of sight. He handed the papers over. "The Rajwade papers. The others. I finally made contact with Rosenblum. I'll get to him again Monday next. He says he'll have something by then. He's a very nervous man. He thinks he's working for your sister."
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Anastasi laughed, shortly. "Sit down, losef, Mondragon would like a brandy."
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