"Flint, Eric - Weber, David - Honorverse SS - From the Highlands" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flewelling Lynn)

moment, some part of Victor was singing hosannas.



The admiral and the ambassador

Edwin Young was a tall man, with a lanky physique. The uniform
of a rear admiral in the Royal Manticoran NavyЧstretched to the
very limits of official regulations with little sartorial touches and
curlicuesЧfit him to perfection. The man's fine-boned features
and long, slender fingers completed the image of an aristocratic
officer quite nicely. So did the relaxed and languid manner in
which he sat in his chair behind the large desk in his office.
Even at a glance, anyone familiar with the subtleties of
Manticoran society would have assumed the admiral was a
member of the nobilityЧand high-ranked nobility, at that. The
intelligence captain who sat across the desk from him thought
that the small, tastefully-subdued pin announcing Young's
membership in the Conservative Association was really quite
unnecessary.
The pin was also against Navy regulations, but the admiral clearly
wasn't concerned about being called on the carpet for wearing it
while in uniform. The only Manticoran official who outranked him
on Terra was Ambassador Hendricks. As it happened, the
Manticoran Ambassador to the Solarian League was in the same
room with the admiral and the captain, standing by the window.
And, as it happened, the ambassador was wearing the identical
pin on his own lapel.
The intelligence captain's eyes, however, were not really focused
on the admiral's pin. They were focused on the admiral's neck. It
was a long neck, slender and supple. Entirely in keeping with
Admiral Young's elite birth and breeding.
The captain was quite certain he could break it easily.
Not that he would bother, except as a side-effect. The captain
had already considered, and discarded, several different ways in
which he could snap the admiral's neck. But they were all too
quick. What the captain primarily wanted was the pleasure of
crushing the admiral's windpipe, slowly and methodically.
Eventually, of course, the vertebra would be crushed. The
pulverized fragments would sever the spinal cord and complete
the job. Probably too quickly, since the captain was an
immensely powerful man and he could not recall ever having
been as enraged as he was at the moment. ButЧ
The captain restrained his fury. The effort involved was difficult
enough that he only caught the last few words of the admiral's
concluding summary.
"Чas I'm sure you will agree, Captain Zilwicki. Once you've had a
chance to think it through in a calmer and more rational state of
mind."
Through ears still rushing with the sound of his own blood, the