"Stephen Goldin - The Sword Unswayed" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goldin Stephen)

"No, but that was the time I met you. While I was directing that play I started taking the orientation
sessions for Polycultural. You remember those."

Despite her hot drink, Dinh shivered. "Yes. There were times I was sure I would not survive the
orientations, let alone the Institute itself. If you had not helped me, I don't think I would have."

"We helped each other," Rabinowitz said. "I can remember times --"

She broke off in mid thought. She had no desire to get into a reminiscing contest with Dinh. She had all
too good an idea where that could lead them.

More silence descended. It was Dinh who broke it this time, though she, too, was avoiding the subject of
the murder. "I still have trouble believing where our paths have taken us. Who would have thought you
would become a reputable, sedate literary broker?"

"Only the people who'd also predict you'd write cookbooks."
"Please. Treatises on food preparation as sociological phenomena."

"Complete with recipes."

"Complete with recipes." Dinh laughed for the first time since entering the house. "Imagine, us -- the two
most rad of the radhumfems -- making our livings so mundanely."

"But times do change and move continually."

"You and your Shakespeare."

"That was Spenser, actually, a contemporary of Will's. But he makes a point. People evolve just as
planets do."

"And sometimes we must help them along. Evolution seldom happens without effort, and the birth pangs
of change are often violent."

"As time goes by, I wonder how I can even help myself along. All youth's ideals become focused through
the lens of experience, as the wise man told us."

"But you still believe in battling injustice."

"Never without my armor, these days. And I scope out the battlefield first."

Dinh tilted her head to look at her college friend. "That does not sound like the Debs I knew. Something
has happened to you."

"Many things have happened to me," Rabinowitz said softly. "Most of them named Mikhail."

Dinh looked at her intensely for a few moments, then just as intensely looked away. Yet another long,
awkward silence until Dinh finally said, "You mentioned you found a murder victim, too. What was that
like?"