"James Alan Gardner - League of Peoples 04 - Hunted" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gardner James Alan)

On our way to the party, the perfumey admiral woman explained that "crossing the line" meant leaving
the Troyen star system for interstellar space. It was a big moment in any starship flight, the point where
you cross out of your starting system... because the League of Peoples has a law, if you've been a bad
person, you aren't allowed to go from one star system to another. If you try it, they kill you. Not messily
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or anything like thatтАФyou just die the second you leave the system where you did the bad things. It's like
magic; except that there is no magic, just superadvanced science from races millions of years older than
us humans. To the League, we were as stupid as worms on a plate, and no matter how smart we thought
we were, the League was a billion times smarter. No oneever fooled them.

Samantha told me the same thing years ago. "Edward, if you ever do something really awful, you'd better
stay put after that. Don't go running off into space, thinking you can just sneak away without anyone
knowing; because the League always knows. Always." I'd followed my sister's advice ever since... till
now.

Now I was headed for a party to celebrate leaving the Troyen system. If it weren't for the admiral pulling
me along with her, I might have gone back to my cabin and tried not to cry.



The lounge was decked out like one of those old masquerade carnivals in Venice or RomeтАФall the walls
set to starry night, with fountains and cobblestones and fancy bridges over canals that stretched far back
into the distance. Now and then, the moving pictures showed people in masks and patchwork costumes,
running through the streets with torches or gathering in courtyards for medieval dances.

Very pretty and classical. Unlike thereal party.

Nearly everybody inWillow's crew was there... and they sure weren't acting like sober navy personnel.
Only the woman and I were in uniform, her in admiral's gray, me in Explorer Corps black. The rest were
all costumed up, either in strange clothes or body paints or holo-surrounds. I couldn't tell what half of
them were supposed to beтАФlike the man just inside the door, wearing pink-silk pajamas and a big putty
nose. He gave me a sloppy wet kiss on the cheek, and said, "Ooo, aren't you the fetching whelp!"... in a
high voice with an odd accent, like he was imitating a character on some broadcast. The woman on my
arm laughed, and glanced to see if I'd laugh too; but it'd been so long since I'd seen any shows, I didn't
know why this was supposed to be funny.

After a moment, the admiral woman gave my arm a squeeze, and said, "Come on, angel, relax, okay?
You want to dance?"

I hadn't even realized there was music playing. It was soft as rainfall but tinkly-jangly, with no beat I
could make out. "I don't know how to dance to this," I said. It wasn't anything like the music Sam and I
listened to, back in the darkened gazebo.

"This is just Coy-Grip," the admiral woman told me. "You don't have to do anything special." Which
wasn't true at all. Apparently, she and I had to wrap our arms tight together in something like achin na
submission hold I'd learned once. (Over the years, Dad's security guards gave me a heap of free