"Sharon Green - Terrillian 3 - Warrior Rearmed" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Sharon)

firmed up behind his stone-hard stare. His thought patterns were more like a
Rimilian's than ever, and I wasn't used to coping with that sort of reaction
from him. "If I hadn't gotten you and Garth loose that night, you would have
been released the next day anyway. You don't owe me a thing. Not a thing!"

I turned in the grass and started to throw myself to my feet, but somehow Len
knew I was going to run from him. His hand might not have been as big as
Tammad's, but it was still big enough to flash out and wrap around my ankle to
hold me down. In desperation I kicked at him, frantic to get loose, but his
other hand caught my second ankle and I was down in the cool grass on my face,
caught the way I was always caught on that world. I struggled and tried to
kick out again, but a single twist forced me to my back, and then Len was
kneeling across me.

"That's more than enough," he said, grabbing my arms to hold me still. "If I
hadn't had some success in copying that shield you developed, I'd be flat on
the ground from that whirlpool of frenzy you've been leaking. You're going to
tell me what's bothering you, Terry, and then we're going to talk it over like
two adults. Walking around shielded all the time is too much like being
unawakened, and I don't want to have to do it any longer."
I stared up at him, feeling the constriction he was talking about, but somehow
helpless to do anything about it. My thoughts were like a whirlpool, twisting
around and around without going anywhere, dragging me farther down into the
depths and taking more of my strength the longer I fought them. I stirred
against the unyielding grip of his hands, having not the faintest idea of
where to begin, but the spinning had enough ideas of its own.

"Len, it isn't true that the Amalgamation would sell me, is it?" I blurted,
distantly shocked that I'd had the nerve to put that particular problem into
words. "They wouldn't just-hand me over to the first man who had something
they wanted, and who decided he wanted me? They'd remember how long I'd worked
for them, and that I was one of them, and refuse to turn their backs on
me-wouldn't they?"

He stared down at me with no expression on his handsome face, but through my
shield and his I had the distinct impression that his thoughts were a blur.
His hands left my arms to brush the ends of my hair free of my face, then he
sat himself beside me in the grass again.

"Well, I guess I asked for it," he muttered, running a hand through the blond
hair that was slowly growing toward the length that Rimilian men wore it at.
"Terry, I'd lie to you if I could, but I haven't the strength to hold this
shield up much longer. The truth is-I don't know. I know I was there when
Murdock McKenzie refused to give back whatever price Tammad paid for you, but
you've been involved in this a lot longer than I have. Do you think they'd
give up all claims on a Prime just for-whatever Tammad paid?"

"I don't know," I said, shaking my head automatically as I sat up in the
grass. "I don't even know what it was that he paid. All I know is that he said
they abandoned me-and then closed me in these chains to prove the point."