"Diane Duane - Feline Wizards 2 - Majesty's Wizardly Service" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duane Diane)

at big gray tabby Urruah, her colleague of several years now, who was
flicking his ears in irritation every few seconds at the racket.
Rhiow felt like doing the same: this was her least favorite time to
be here. Nevertheless, work sometimes made it necessary. Bong, said
the clock: and clearly audible through it, through the voices and the
diesel thunder and the sound of the slightly desperate-sounding train
announcer, a small clear voice spoke. "These endless dumb drills," it
said, "lick butt."

WHAM! -- and Arhu fell over on the platform, while above him Urruah
leaned down, one paw still raised, wearing an expression that was
surprisingly mild -- for the moment. "Language," he said.

"Whaddaya mean?! There's no one here but you and Rhiow, and you use
worse stuff than that all the -- "

WHAM! Arhu fell over again. "Courtesy," Urruah said, "is an important
commodity among wizards, especially wizards working together as a
team. Not to mention mere ordinary people working as teams or in-
pride, as you'll find if you survive that long. Which seems unlikely
at the moment. My language isn't at question here, and even if it
were, I don't use it on my fellow team members, or to them, even by
implication."

"But I only said -- " Arhu suddenly fell silent again at the sight of
that upraised paw.

Dumb drills, Rhiow thought, and breathed out, resigned. This is not a
drill, life is not a drill, when will he get the message? Lives ...
She sighed again. Sometimes I think the One made a mistake telling
our people that we're going to get nine of them. Some of us get
complacent ...

"Let's be clear about this," Urruah said. "Our job is to keep the
worldgates down here functioning. Human wizards can't do this kind of
work, or not nearly as well as we can, anyway, since we can see
hyperstrings, and ehhif can't without really working at it. That
being the case, the Powers That Be asked us very politely if we would
do this job, and we said yes. You said yes, too, when They offered
you wizardry and you took it, and you said "yes" again when we took
you in-pride and you agreed to stay with us. That means you're stuck
with the job. So you may as well learn how to do it right, and part
of that involves working smoothly with your teammates. Another part
of it is practicing managing these gates until you can do it quickly,
in crisis situations, without having to stop to think and worry and
"figure out" what you're doing. And this is what we are teaching you
to do, and will continue teaching you to do, until you can exhibit at
least a modicum of effectiveness, which may be several lives on, not
that it matters to me. You got that?"