"James Doohan - Flight Engineer Volume 3 -The Independent Com" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doohan James)

BAEN BOOKS by S.M. Stirling
The Draka series:
The Stone Dogs
The Domination
Drakon
Drakas! (anthology)

The General series with David Drake:
The Forge
The Hammer
The Anvil
The Steel
The Sword
The Chosen
The Reformer

With Jerry Pournelle:
Blood Feuds
Blood Vengeance

The City Who Fought (with Anne McCaffrey)
The Ship Avenged
The Rose Sea (with Holly Lisle)
Snowbrother
Saber & Shadow (with Shirley Meier)
 PROLOGUE

Excarix entered the presence of his queen with terror thrumming in his thorax. Like all
queens Syaris was easily twice as large as he was, her pedipalps capable of severing his head
from his body in one neat snip, her temperament such that this was an all too likely
conclusion to any interview. Therefore the abject fear instinctive in a male of his species
when approaching the most puissant female of the clan was greatly increased.
Over time he had, perforce, learned to ignore his feelings. But a private audience, like this
one, arranged for a male of no consequence, like himself, strengthened his terror almost to the
point of pain.
Yet no sign of his turmoil was apparent. He moved with solemn dignity, holding his
pedipalps in a position of worshipful subservience.
Syaris seemed unaware of him as she idly stroked a writhing, silk wrapped bundle
suspended from the ceiling. That she was not hungry was apparent to Excarix by scent. But
not to the bound prey that mewled in terror as she tapped its cocoon to make it spin.
As he drew near to her desire grew in him and added its own rhythms to the disturbance
within.
So beautiful, he thought as the power of her pheromones began to work on him.
It was not merely the influence of her scent that made him find her ravishing. By the
standards of his species the young queen was indeed very lovely. The exquisite shape of her
head at the end of her unusually long and graceful neck, the subtle shadings of her gleaming,
reddish-brown body, the slender length of her legs, the charming placement of her eyesтАФ
especially the anterior dorsal pair, the тАЬgates of the soulтАЭ as the poets put itтАФall this made her
a bewitching sight.
At this point he would have found it very difficult to withdraw from her presence, even if