"David Drake - RCN 04 - Glory" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

whole business was too illogical not to have been Something's cruel joke.

"Mistress Mundy...?"

"I'm very sorry," Adele said, curtseying to Kearnes in honest contrition. "I'm afraid I'm distracted

by the--"

She didn't know how to go on. Not with what she was really thinking, not to this woman who'd

no more understand than if Adele began chattering in the language of a just-discovered planet which'd

fallen into savagery at the Hiatus and never recovered.

"We don't have much occasion for events like this," Adele continued in a flash of inspiration. It

wasn't exactly a lie. Not exactly. She made a gesture of cultured restraint to the glittering crowd. "I

haven't seen anything to equal it since, that is, in a very long time."

Since my family was massacred; but that was another thing not to say here.

"Would you like to go...," Kearnes began. She caught herself and amended her words to,

"Would you mind stepping into a drawing room with me, Mistress Mundy? I know it's my party and I

shouldn't, but I really do want to talk with you. It's about my son, you see."

Adele went blank-faced. Her son?

"Yes, of course," she said aloud, meaning the private discussion rather than that she had any idea

of what Lira Kearnes was talking about. It took conscious restraint to prevent Adele from pulling out her

personal data unit and squatting on the floor to check the Kearnes family in a detail greater than what

she'd thought necessary on receiving the invitation. It was always a mistake not to search deeply when

you had the time!

Adele wore a double tunic and skirt. The translucent outer fabric was a misty gray which slightly

blurred the geometric patterns embroidered in black on her inner garments. The data unit in a pocket on

the inner skirt was hidden from view but instantly accessible. Through the unit's controlling wands--less

bulky than a keypad--Adele had access to the wider universe in the only form she could really accept it:

as tabulated information.