"Kay Kenyon - Tropic of Creation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kenyon Kay)

Geoff Olander nodded in the direction of the next wadi. "Think there's something down there, then?"

/ hope so, sprang to Eli's mind. It was a Dammond brother's response. Always a nose for trouble, drawn
to the action. Sometimes the action was more than they bar-gained for. Now three of his four brothers
were dead, killed in the warтАФthe real war, Eli's father said, not the elite officer's war, cushioned by
command, out of the fray.

Once, coming back from officer candidate school, Eli and his father had duked it out over whether Eli
thought he was too good for enlisted rank. Neither could remember who swung first, but they both
landed some hard blows. Later, spent and gasping, they washed up together and sat down to dinner at
the big family table. Nobody said a word about their bruises, swelling like bread dough.

Geoff was still waiting for his answer.

"Only one way to find out," Eli finally said.

From the distance came the grinding shudder of the hexadron, having another go at the hard pan floor of
the wadi.

3

Sascha Olander and her parents had a deluxe tent, officer-quality issue straight off the newly arrived
Lucia. Nearby, Captain Marzano's tent sagged from three years of peeling-hot sun. Geoff Olander had
offered their tent to Marzano. But she had declined, as she should.

In the middle of that spacious tent, Sascha sat on a chair as her mother rewove her braid in front of the
silver-edged mirror that she'd hung from the tent pole.

Sascha pursued her point, though her mother was weary of the topic: "Why do you hate him so?"

"I don't hate him." Cristin pulled the braid so tight Sascha's temples ached.

"Despise him, then."

"I neither despise nor hate him, dear. I seldom regard him at all." She secured the braid with a band,
frowning at the wisps that sprang loose.

"That's soтАж dismissive," Sascha returned with some heat. "You're just like all the rest."
Her father looked up from his worktable, catching Sascha's eye, conveying his rebuke.

For his sake, Sascha toned it down a notch. "We're friends, Mother. I just want to watch him go into the
mine. Or whatever it is."

"It's a military matter. You'll just be in the way." Cristin checked her own hair in the mirror, the
short-cropped, stylish cut of a woman graduated from girlish braids.

Sascha needed a deep, cooling breath, but when she inhaled, all she got was a chest full of Null's hot,
yeasty air.