"C. J. Cherryh - Fever SeasonUC - Compilation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cherryh C J)

"You keep in touch with me about that."
"Chamoun was still high when he said it. Eyes dilated. Voice up. 1 don't know who talked to him, I don't know when he got this assignment, I don't know why the cardinal let him out in that condition. Or whether someone else got to him. AH this came up at the last minute. I haven't had time to trace it."
Anastasi nodded, thinking, and looked at him, so much like Kar.1 Fon in that little mannerism it caught at his gut.
"Do that," Anastasi said.
The skip plowed its way through the chop, logy as a three-day drunk. She took a little water, but very little: Jones kept her bow to the waves and chewed a piece out of her lip every time a gust rocked the boat.
Then the engine sputtered.
She hit the engine-box with her fist. "Dammit, not now!"
FEVER SEASON (REPRISED)
*7
Second sputter. Same with her heart. If the engine died and she lost way, there was no way to keep from going broadside to the waves, which meant water and more water and the bottom of the harbor.
She throttled up a little, knowing that tank was going to go down fast at that rate, but the sputters smoothed out.
More water over the side.
Damn.
Damnfool stunt.
She twisted round, still fighting the tiller's tendency to go off to starboard, got the bottom of the engine-box open and reached in by feel and started working the hand-pump, moving fuel over from the second tank, a rig thai had cost her a goldbit, and worth it all now, in the dark, in the wind.
There were oars. That was well and fine, but the skip was too wide for one rower. Took two.
Dammit. Mondragon ain't ever going to know, is he? Damn grease slick'll wash out to sea and they ain't never going to find the boat.
Sputter.
Sputter. Up with the throttle again, hope to hell there was no clog in the line. Sometimes it was the filter-screen did it, picked up some damn bit of weed. Sometimes it was the damn intake. And she was running out of hands.
Put the pin in to hold the tiller steady on, never mind the damn water coming in, never mind the fuel drain. She felt after the stick she used and poked at the filter through the access while the engine went on sputtering and water washed over the port side.
Engine was running hot. She felt it. She could not tell whether there had been anything in the intake. Maybe it was just the load.
She pulled the pin out to free the tiller and took it under her arm, fighting the skip to avoid another wash.
You lose my boat, Almir, I ain't thanking you.
Damn, mama, I know, I know.
What in hell're you doing out here?
Good question, mama.
6i CJ. Cherrylt
Man stung you in your pride and look what ye gone and done, look what damnfool thing ye did.
She thought that over awhile. Having bitten her Up till it bled.
Ain't a bad old engine, mama. He's still running.
Listen to me, Altair.
Yey, mama. I hear ye. That's Ramseyhead up there. I think she's going to hold.
Hear me?
Yey, mama. Your daughter's a fool. But f ain't going to lose this boat.
You got to be a fool, Altair, be it for something worthwhile.
Yey, mama. He is. Most-times. ЧDamn!
A Rimmon yacht was out and underway, dark and sleek, needing no sails, and low enough to make the bridge at Ramseyhead, which meant low enough to make Fishmjirket and Golden and any bridge between Ramseyhead and Archangel, where boats like that had to do their turn and come about again.
She thought she knew which one that was.
She had seen it ride down a skip once, the night the Signeury had come under attack. Folk said after tempers cooled, well, she's a big boat, she don't see too good.
But the master of that black ship didn't damn well careЧ not a spit and a damn did he care.
Mondragon, she thought, clinging to the tiller. Mondragon's there. With him. I hope.
Oh, damn, going up to the Signeury tonight. Going up near Boregy. And the Justiciary, and wherever.
Maybe he's home by now, instead. Safe in bed. Wondering where in hell I am.
Can't go no faster, Mondragon. I ain't going to get t' Moghi's much before dawn.
"Easier," Anastasi had said, "if certain people come aboard . . . rather than having you out knocking on doors."
Certain people meant Vega Boregy. And Cardinal Ito Tremaine Boregy. And Chastity Rajwade, cloaked and muf-
FEVER SEASON (REPRISED)
69
fled and carrying a sword she very possibly could use. Mondragon flinched at the latter presence: it was one more person to whom his cover became transparent.
"My cousin," Vega Boregy said of Mondragon.