"George R. R. Martin - Override" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

across the glittering green lakes.
But Cochran died before they reached the river.
Kabaraijian stopped the boat then, and let it float dead in the water. He listened to the sounds of
Grotto around him; the rush of river water pouring into the great lake, the songbirds and the day-wings,
the ever-active lakeleapers arcing through the air. He sat there until dusk fell, staring upriver, and
thinking.
He thought of tomorrow and the day after. Tomorrow he must return to the swirlstone caves. His
corpses should have frozen when he moved out of range; they should be salvageable. And one of
Cochran's crew was still there, too. Maybe he could still piece together a three-crew, if the corpse he'd
pushed overboard hadn't drowned.
And there were swirlstones there, big ones. He'd get that egg of dancing fog, and turn it in, and get a
good estimate. Money. He had to have money, all he could scrape together. Then he could start talking
to the others. And then . . . and then Bartling would have a fight on his hands. Cochran was one casualty,
the first. But not the last. He'd tell the others that Bartling had sent a man out with an override box, and
that Cochran had been killed because of it. It was true. It was all true.
That night Kabaraijian returned with only one corpse in his launch, a corpse that was strangely still
and unmoving. Always his corpses had walked behind him into the office. That night the corpse rode on
his shoulder.