"George R. R. Martin - WC 4 - Aces Abroad" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

to support this explanation, but the public does not seem convinced. According
to the polls, more people believe the conspiracy theory put forward in the
National Informer-that the killings were independent, caused by powerful aces
known and unknown carrying out personal vendettas, using their powers in utter
disregard for law and public safety, and that afterward those aces conspired
with each other and the police to cover up their atrocities, blaming everything
on one crippled old man who happened to be conveniently dead, clearly at the
hands of some ace.
Already several books have been announced, each purporting to explain what
really happened-the immoral opportunism of the publishing industry knows no
bounds. Koch, ever aware of the prevailing winds, has ordered several cases
re-opened and has instructed the IAD to investigate the police role.
Jokers are pitiful and loathed. Aces have great power, and for the first time in
many years a sizable segment of the public has begun to distrust those aces and
fear that power. No wonder that demagogues like Leo Barnett have swelled so
vastly in the public mind of late.
So I'm convinced that our tour has a hidden agenda; to wash away the blood with
some "good ink," as they say, to defuse the fear, to win back trust and take
everyone's mind off Wild Card Day.
I admit to mixed feelings about aces, some of whom definitely do abuse their
power. Nonetheless, as a joker, I find myself desperately hoping that we succeed
... and desperately fearing the consequences if we do not.


BEASTS OF BURDEN
John J. Miller
"From envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness, Good Lord, deliver
us."
-The Litany, Book of Comnwn Prayer
His rudimentary sexual organs were dysfunctional, but his mounts thought of him
as masculine, perhaps because his stunted, wasted body looked more male than
female. What he thought of himself was an unopened book. He never communicated
about matters of that sort.
He had no name but that borrowed from folklore and given to him by his mounts-Ti
Malice-and he didn't really care what they called him as long as they addressed
him with respect. He liked the dark because his weak eyes were unduly sensitive
to light. He never ate because he had no teeth to chew or tongue to taste. He
never drank alcohol because the primitive sack that was his stomach couldn't
digest it. Sex was out of the question.
But he still enjoyed gourmet foods and vintage wines and expensive liquors and
all possible varieties of sexual experience. He had his mounts.
And he always was looking for more.

i.
Chrysalis lived in the Jokertown slum where she owned a bar, so she was
accustomed to viewing scenes of poverty and misery. But Jokertown was a slum in
the most affluent country on the earth, and Bolosse, the slum district of
Port-au-Prince, Haiti's sprawling waterfront capital city, was in one of the
poorest.
From the outside the hospital looked like a set from a B-grade horror movie