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

"Sorry," she said. "Some things 1 ain't going to trade."
"I'm not asking you to give up the boat. I'm asking you to give up those damn smuggling runs! I'm asking you to use your head, dammit! and not put us in trouble."
"Not put us in trouble! Who was doing ail right before some fool man got himself throwed in the canal in front of her boat, and then she gets him safe and he gets himself caught againЧ"
He stopped what he was doing. Then he rolled onto his back and was very quiet.
Damn.
Damn the man. Hurt his feelings, she had. And he hurt her gut.
She slumped down on her arms, bowed her head against the tangled sheets and bit her lip till it hurt as much as she hurt inside.
My, -we're touchy, Mondragon.
She had said worse to him. But when people got too close they hurt each other, that was the way of it.
19
in
"I can't change," she said. "Mondragon, you been prison. Where ye trying to put me?"
Sifence. a long time. Damn, that was really the wrong thing to have said. It hurt loo much. They could not help it with each other.
"Jones," he said quietly, then, "1 only want you to be safe."
"Locked up. Same as walls."
Another long silence. Finally he snaked his arm under her stomach and turned over against her, holding her tight. "Jones," he said, "Jones, Jones, Jones. Just be careful."
"Ye been in here too long yourself. You been sitting in these walls and messing 'round with that damn Anastasi and that Boregy. Time you got the feel of a boat again, time you worked up some callus on your hands, work up a sweat, feel old Del move under your feetЧ''
"1 wish, I really wish I could."
"Run with me tomorrow night. We got a Falkenaer ship in. We just go out there and make a little deal, Moghi's got 'er all set. Ain't no way there's going to be trouble. Ye want people t' believe that ye're Falkenaer, right? Ye got business ye don't want people t' know. So ye smuggle. Ever'body knows a smuggler's got secrets he don't want people messing into. Answers all their questions. Smart, right?"
More long silence. She felt him sigh, and his hands caught hers. "Jones, I've got business tomorrow. I will have. For a few days."
"What d'ye mean business? You been sitting on your rump in this place for a month, yeЧ"
His hands squeezed hard. "Tomorrow I won't be. I've got to go uptown. Tomorrow. Maybe late. Maybe more than tomorrow. 1 don't know. I haven't got a choice. Understand?"
*'Ye wasn't going to tell me!"
"I was going to tell you in the morning. 1 swear."
"Oh, sure."
"I'm not lying. I swear."
"What's he want?"
"I don't know. See him. That's all the message I got."
20
CJ. Cherryh
FEVER SEASON
21
"Anastasi?"
"Yes."
"Damn him."
"I don't want you running late. I don't want to worry about where you are. I'd like you to go to Moghi's, rent the Room,Ч"
"Well, I can't do that, can I? I got a run to make," He frightened her. He was good at that. So was Anastasi Kalugin, the governor's son, who had them both any time he wanted to take them. And so, equally well, the Sword of God frightened her. It was in town again. Maybe it had never left at all. It aimed at upsetting everything. It aimed, Mondragon had said, at whatever would cause the most trouble and give it the most power. Mondragon should know: he had been one of them. Which was his value to Anastasi Kalugin, who hoped to outlive his brother and his sister and be governor of Merovingen someday.
Of course Anastasi's sister Tatiana had other thoughts. Maybe so did Josef Kalugin, who was not through being governor.
There were a lot of people she and Mondragon had reason to worry about. There were a lot who had reason to worry about them. And who might, some dark of the Moon, try to do something about it.
"Forget the run," he said.
"1 can't do that!"
"Moghi'll understand. He can find somebody else. You give him enough money, he'I! understand well enough how it is."
"Oh, sure, I back out on him this time and I make him go use some other skip and then what do I get next time? What's he going to do next time he wants a load carried? Call me? Hell, I might be busy. / might have some reason to hide out. He might just find himself another skip that don't come with problems, mightn't he? And the word might just get around Jones ain't real reliable, Jones don't need the work that badЧ"
"Moghi will understand!"
"Moghi's who we got to go with if we got to have help. You want 1 make 'im mad at me? You want I go back on a promise with 'im? I dunno how you do business uptown, Mondragon, but canalside, ye don't back out on a thing and then come asking favors. You could've told meЧ"
"I didn't know it, dammit."
"Well, now it's too late, ain't it?"
"It's not too late. Tell him you have a friend in trouble, tell him it's life and death, hell, wouldn't you, if you had to? How's he to know the difference?"
"Because I ain't never give my word an' lied, that's how! Because if you was in trouble uptown I'd come, but you ain't asking me to come with ye, ye ain't got any intention of it, and /'// have my skip tied up here about while Moghi gets the idea I might need help an' sends somebody to follow meЧ How'd that look, huh? I got no choice. I go with you, or I make that run."
"You can't go with me. It's uptown. I'd have to leave you at a tie-up at Boregy and it's not safeЧ"