"Jacqueline Lichtenberg - Lifewave 02 - City of a Million Legends" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lichtenberg Jacqueline)

clothing to protect his human skin against the mountain chill.
Suddenly, all his contentedness vanished in a flush of protective alertness such as he had not felt since his first bhirhir, his molt
brother Sudeen, had died.
He sat up, gathering his legs under him, scrutinizing the two kren in the pond, Arshel and Khelin.
"What's the matter?" asked Ley, Khelin's bhirhir.
Zref shrugged, peering about the room, half expecting to see ghosts lurking in the steamy air.
Ley brushed his hair back from his face and whispered, one human to another, "Come on! You know Khelin's never attacked
any female, let alone Arshel! Relax."
Zref shivered, realizing he'd broken out in a cold sweat. He searched for a logical cause for his alarm. Arshel was not yet truly
Zref s bhirhir; they couldn't pledge until the mating finished. But he already felt as protective as he'd ever felt with Sudeen. And
now it seemed a presence invaded this most private room threatening Arshel his brothers Khelin and Ley тАФhimself.
The heart-pounding surge of alarm was abating, the presence gone. "I trust Khelin, too," he whispered to Ley.
But Zref remained sitting, inspecting the room.
The kren had salted the pond water and warmed the air simulating Arshel's native tropical island, so she could suffer the rigors
of egg-laying in comfort. But the rest of the room was typical of all freshwater spawning ponds. The water filled half the floor. The
other half, almost all the way to the door
leading to the rest of the immense MorZdersh'n family home, was a gently sloping sand hill. To Zref's right hulked the freestanding
arch, the "door to the room without walls" of kren philosophy. To one side, pegs jutted from the wall, holding street clothing. On a
table set beneath the clothing, Zref and Ley kept toiletries.
 Focusing on Ley, Zref noted that his fellow human's tan was fading, and he seemed to have gained some weight during the long
mating, though he still had a muscular build.
Ley flipped his long, sand-colored hair back and whispered, "They're going to want us in there soon."
"Maybe not," answered Zref. He focused on the kren pair in the water. Iridescent scales flashed in the artificial light, but it was
easy to pick out Arshel's darker saltwater-spawn coloring. Two earless heads surfaced and the sound of kren voices reached them
over the lap-rush-lap of the water. Soon, Arshel would be laying her egg.
An uprush of curiosity swept aside the soft murmuring of the water as deep inside Zref's mind the comnet Interface signaled a
message had dropped into his private file, that part of the Interface Guild's comlink set aside for Zref to use as his own memory.
Years ago, his brain had been surgically altered to give him access to the webwork of connected computer banks located in all the
far-flung centers of the Hundred Planets civilization, so that now opening the Interface was natural and peculiarly satisfying.
The Urgent Flag on the message had caused the high-intensity curiosity. Mating or no, he had to read that message. "There's
someone waiting to see you in the reception room of your house. Youta."
Youta, an Interface of the Jernal species, had been on Camiat long enough to know not to interrupt a kren mating. Zref opened
and dropped a return message into Youta's private file. "The person will have to wait. Zref."
"This is a Hundred Planets security matter, and a Guild Policy matter. Rodeen will not break her word and order you off
Camiat while you are still obligated to Arshel, but we all believe you both should go. Youta."
No! But Zref didn't drop that reply, and before he could frame something diplomatic, Ley was shaking him.
"Zref, pay attention. You can't open now!"
"I'm sorry, did they call us?" Zref searched the churning waters while lowering his blood pressure to control his curiosity,
determined not to be seduced into opening when Arshel needed him.
Ley, restraining Zref with one hand, warned, "Not yet, but it can't be long now; Khelin is frantic." Ley pulled his hand back,
glancing sideways at Zref. "Is something wrong? You've never opened when your attention should be on them."
Zref arranged his face into a grateful smile. Ley was treating him as if he were actually Arshel's bhirhir. "The Guild is dropping
me messages demanding my attention." He hadn't intended to say that, but Zref had served the Hundred Planets as an Interface
long enough not to be surprised at what came out of his mouth in answer to a direct question.
"During a mating?! You shouldn't let them do that!"
Zref was relieved that Ley hadn't phrased his advice, Why do you... which would have compelled him to answer. As it was, he
felt nothing.
Ley frowned. "Khelin hasn't raised a drop of venom in almost five days. He must be in agony, but he's so involved he can't even
feel it. I never thought kren could behave like this... as if he wants the mating to go on forever!"
Zref averted his gaze and opened briefly, then said, "According to the literature, the three years they've gone, with this being