"Monica Hughes - Devil On My Back" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hughes Monica)

the Lords' Hall, his feast, his celebration, he wept more bitterly than ever. The smell coming from the
pots on the stove close by, inferior though it must be to the food he was accustomed to, became more
and more tantalizing as the hours dragged by.
After a long time the appetizing smell turned to one of burning food. Later on a slave came into
the kitchen, sniffed the air, cursed and turned off the burners on the big stoves. He left without paying any
attention to the New Lord Bentt, sniffling against a table leg.
More time went by. A need even more pressing than hunger attacked Tomi. He yelled and went
on yelling until a slave poked his head around the corner of the door. "Shut your face, Lordling, or we'll
shut it for you."
"But I have to go to the bathroom."
"Then go." The door slammed shut. Tomi closed his eyes and moaned.
 He opened them at the sound of a faint shuffling. A slave slid into the kitchen, not swaggering
with head up, as the others had done, but softly, eyes downcast, the way slaves were supposed to move.
She pushed her tangled hair out of her eyes.
"Seventy-Three!"
"Hush! Oh, be quiet, Young Lord." She stood above him, her hands twisting together, an
expression in her eyes that he did not understand at all. "Oh, why did it have to be you? Any of the other
Lordlings, I would have cheered whatever they did."
He stared up at her, not understanding. "You've got to help me, Seventy-Three. Untie me. I'll tell
Father to give you anything you..."
She drew back and stood upright. "You don't know anything, do you? All that knowledge on
your back and you don't know the simplest..." She began to laugh softly, her hand to her mouth. Then
she seemed to recollect, looked anxiously over her shoulder and knelt beside him, working away at the
knots, which had tightened in Tomi's useless struggles.
"There. That's it. Now you've got to hide and stay hidden until it's all over. There's nothing more I
can do. They'd kill me if they knew."
"But where? If they see I'm gone they'll search everywhere for me." He stood with a gasp,
clutching at the table, and stared wildly round at the row of sinks, the high tables, the ovens, the array of
pots hanging from the ceiling. "There's nowhere..."
"The garbage chute!" Seventy-Three pointed to the wall, where Tomi could see a square hole
liberally spattered with old gravy and other unrecognizable leftovers. It was covered with a flap that
swung loosely from above.
"Garbage?" Tomi drew back.
"Oh, you great stupid! Don't you understand? They'll kill you in a minute if your father doesn't
give them everything they want. And you know the Lord Bentt will never give way, not even to save
you."
"But..."
"Come on. Climb through. There's a kind of ridge on the inside you should be able to stand on. I
know, I worked in the kitchen once, and it was always hard to clean in there. Listen carefully, Young
Lord. Hold on tight whatever happens, because it's a straight drop down to the main sewer."
As Tomi hesitated beside the gravy-encrusted opening, she gave him a little push and then ran
from the kitchen like a shadow.
Death or a garbage chute? Tomi gulped. He consulted his lifepak and then all the infopaks he had
acquired so painfully in the last six months. They gave him no useful suggestion at all.
For the first time in his adult life he made up his own mind. He wound his new gown closely
around his middle and tucked the loose end tightly so it would not get in his way. He pushed up the flap.
A stink of rotted vegetables and ancient grease hit him in the face. He gulped again, turned and
scrambled feet first through the hole. His toes scrabbled wildly. Where...? Yes, there was the ridge,
almost a shelf, about a meter down, probably the end of a flooring joist. He squatted with his fingers
hooked over the lower edge of the chute opening.