"Geoffrey A. Landis - Elemental (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Landis Geoffrey A)

Kirschmeyer turned around. "Ramsey?"
But Ramsey was already gone.
Pompeii was tranquil and peaceful. Susan had expected to see a blasted ruin of
rock and volcanic ash, but instead she found a sunny clearing in the midst of
fields of olive trees and vineyards.. The tour guide went on to take the group
past varied excavations and ruins. Susan quietly slipped away from the horde
of would-be guides, souvenier sellers, and vendors of `authentic' relics
surrounding the group and found a low stone wall overlooking the site to sit
on and contemplate.
Up the dirt road in front of her zipped a sportscar, a sleek late-model
Tigershark, gold with black trim stripes and a tinted canopy. As it came by
her it abruptly slowed and skewed around in a cloud of dust. The fans revved
down
and the car settled to the ground. When the canopy popped open, Susan was
surprised to recognize Ramsey's advisor, Doctor Williamson.
"Excuse me," said Doctor Williamson. "Don't I know you?"
"Susan Robinette. Yes, 1 work for Hans Kirschmeyer, down the hall."
"Oh, yes, of course. You're the one Hans always talks about, doing the work
with the elemental. How unusual to run into you so far from home! But, of
course, you must be on your way to Venus. Right?"
"Right," said Susan. "The flight was delayed; I'm killing time until it gets
rescheduled."
"What a nuisance. You know, sometimes I think I've spent half my life in
airports, and spaceports, waiting for flights, waiting for people to arrive,
waiting for people to pick me up. I'd give up traveling entirely, if it
weren't the only way to get from here to there."
"You travel a lot, Doctor Williamson? To conferences and such, I suppose."
"Please, call me Jane. No, I was traveling long before I ever got invited to
conferences. My parents were both diplomats, you know. When I grew up, I
hardly knew which continent to call home, much less which country."
"That sounds so wonderful," said Susan wistfully. "I never went even a hundred
kilos from home until 1 left for school in Ontario."
"You're from Quebec, I take it'?"
Susan pouted. "Is my accent still that obvious? Yes, I'm from Saint Andre.
It's well north of Montreal, on Lac St. Jean."
"Ah, yes. Beautiful country, that.
Well, I can tell you that growing up in hotels and embassies around the world
may sound fabulous, but the reality is quite the opposite, I assure you. For
one thing, I never had any friends my own age. Just about the time 1 started
making friends somewhere, we'd move, or I'd be sent off to live with my father
on another continent, or something.
"Your parents were divorced'?"
"Oh, no!" Jane laughed. "But they did hardly ever see one another. Except at
occasional diplomatic balls and suchlike. I think they really did love each
other, in their own way. You had to be very close to them to be able to tell,
though."
"That seems so different from my family," Susan said. "I grew up on a farm; my
parents hardly ever got out of sight of each other."
"How did you end up doing thaumaturgy?"
"in high school we had a physics teacher who knew a little thaumaturgy as