"George R. R. Martin - Dying of the Light" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

imagined it tender and loving, and sometimes it had been an angry confrontation, and often it had been tearful-but it
had never been quite like this, awkward and at odd angles, with a stranger present throughout it all. He began to
wonder exactly who Arkin Ruark was, and whether his relationship with Gwen was quite what they said it was. But
then, they had hardly said anything. Without knowing what to say or to think, he shrugged and followed as they led
him to their aircar.
The walk was quite short. The car, when they reached it, took Dirk aback. He had seen a lot of different types of
aircars in his travels, but none quite like this one; huge and steel-gray, with curved and muscled triangular wings, it
looked almost alive, like a great aerial manta ray fashioned in metal. A small cockpit with four seats was set between
the wings, and beneath the wingtips he glimpsed ominous rods.
He looked at Gwen and pointed. "Are those lasers?"
She nodded, smiling just a little.
"What the hell are you flying?" Dirk asked. "It looks like a war machine. Are we going to be assaulted by
Hrangans? I haven't seen anything like that since we toured the Institute museums back on Avalon."
Gwen laughed, took his bag from him, and tossed it into the back seat. "Get in," she told him. "It is a perfectly fine
aircar of High Kavalaan manufacture. They've only recently started turning out their own. It's supposed to look like
an animal, the black banshee. A flying predator, also the brother-beast of the Iron-jade Gathering. Very big in their
folklore, sort of a totem."
She climbed in, behind the stick, and Ruark followed a bit awkwardly, vaulting over the armored wing into the
back. Dirk did not move. "But it has lasers!" he insisted.
Gwen sighed. "They're not charged, and never have been. Every car built on High Kavalaan has weapons of some
sort. The culture demands it. And I don't mean just Ironjade's. Redsteel, Braith, and the Shanagate Holding are all the
same."
Dirk walked around the car and climbed in next to Gwen, but his face was blank. "What?"
"Those are the four Kavalar holdfast-coalitions," she explained. "Think of them as small nations, or big families.
They're a little of both."
"But why the lasers?"
"High Kavalaan is a violent planet," Gwen replied.
Ruark gave a snort of laughter. "Ah, Gwen," he said. "That is utter wrong, utter!"
"Wrong?" she snapped.
"Very," Ruark said. "Yes, utter, because you are close to truth, half and not everything, worst lie of all."
Dirk turned in his seat to look back at the chubby blond Kimdissi. "What?"
"High Kavalaan was a violent planet, truth. But now, truth is, the violence is the Kavalars. Hostile folk, each and
every among them, xenophobes often, racists. Proud and jealous. With their highwars and their code duello, yes, and
that is why Kavalar cars have guns. To fight with, in the air! I warn you, t'Larien-"
"Arkin!" Gwen said between her teeth, and Dirk started at the edged malice in her tone. She threw on the gravity
grid suddenly, touched the stick, and the aircar wrenched forward and left the ground with a whine of protest, rising
rapidly. The port below them was bright with light where the Shuddering of Forgotten Enemies stood among the
lesser starships, shadowy everywhere else. Around it was darkness to the unseen horizon where black ground
blended with blacker sky. Only a thin powder of stars lit the night above. This was the Fringe, with intergalactic
space above and the dusky curtain of the Tempter's Veil below, and the world seemed lonelier than Dirk had ever
imagined.
Ruark had subsided, muttering, and a heavy silence lay over the car for a long moment.
"Arkin is from Kimdiss," Gwen said finally, and she forced a chuckle. Dirk remembered her too well to be fooled,
however; she was not one bit less tense than when she had snapped at Ruark a moment before.
"I don't understand," Dirk said, feeling quite stupid, since everyone seemed to think he should.
"You are no outworlder," Ruark said. "Avalon, Baldur, whatever world, it doesn't matter. Your people inside the
Veil don't know Kavalars."
"Or Kimdissi," Gwen said, a little more calmly.
Ruark grunted. "A sarcasm," he told Dirk. "Kimdissi and Kavalars, well, we don't get on, you know? So Gwen is
telling you I'm all prejudiced and not to believe me."