"Jacqueline Lichtenberg - Dushau Trilogy 01 - Dushau" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lichtenberg Jacqueline)

While she dithered, feeling helpless and trapped in her own office and hating herself for it, Tully, her
department's Sentient, came on the screenтАФa delightfully muscular young human with a frontier planet
accent. "The Kamminth Outreach, Formulator and Protector have arrived."
Jindigar entered as the door opened quietly. He was flanked by Seum and Dinai. all dressed formally.
Sure enough, Imp was atop Jindigar's head. He set the piol down, providing it with a plastic toy fish to
play with and asked, waving at the full outer office, "All of that in our honor?"

"We thought we'd be able to finish today. Besides, I think they're all dying of curiosity. Kamminth's tale is
all over the division. Right now, I expect they're gossiping about your arrival." Her cheer sounded
strained, and her eyes kept straying to the doors on either side of the room.

Jindigar nodded. "Perhaps we can yet retrieve enough detail to publish a full and attractive prospectus."

Krinata rose, gesturing to the couches arrayed in the other end of the office behind a filigreed screen.

They entered the debriefing area, stripping off turban and outer robe with businesslike precision. As she
powered up the equipment arrayed around her control chair, Jindigar installed Dinai and Seum on an
adjacent lounge and made himself at home on the debriefing couch. He hesitated, frowning at her as if he
sensed something amiss. "What's bothering you, Krinata?"

"Uh... nothing," she lied, hating herself for being weak. Nothing's going to happen. It's better he
doesn't know. She could see through the brittle cheer of his facade to the bottomless ache of loss that
was gnawing at his vitals. And he was nursing that ache, not attempting to surmount it, because its ceasing
would wall him away from the data the Emperor wanted. "Let's get on with this," pled Krinata as much
for herself as for them.

As if stung, Jindigar turned to his zunre, gathered them with eye contact and then joined hands with them.
"We can't balance anymore, but we will access what mutual contact is left to us. Forgive, please, any
clumsy lapses."

It wasn't in anything he said, but she got the sudden impression that this was very dangerous for them.
Arlai hadn't warned her about that. But she flung herself into her control chair, forcing all worries from her
mind. If they could give so much to the Empire surely the least she could do was support them. She
snapped on the cone of green light which signified the detector beams were focused on the debriefing
lounge.

Jindigar took his place under that cone as he had hundreds of times before. The other two Dushau settled
for the long session, hands joined in some sort of formal configuration. Krinata gave herself with long
discipline to the frame of mind of a prospective colonist.

She summoned enthusiasm, curiosity, and determination to make a shrewd choice among the new homes
available. The machines responded to her brainwaves, the lights flickering in their proper patterns. In the
outer office, she knew from years of work there herself, screens echoed hers, and others drew data forth
for comparison. Tully stood by with his semi-sentients ready to integrate the data.

"All right, take me to Margo," said Krinata, "and show me what makes it such a great planet to live on."

The scientific data already flowed across her screens, streams of numbers, equations, parameters and
analyses, life-typings and ranges. But how many prospective colonists could take those numbers and