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

boss," John was saying. Already his lilac fear was receding. Across the room,
Gregg saw Father Squid finally disengage himself from the reporter and shamble
pitifully toward Hiram's buffet on his tentacles. The reporter saw Gregg at the
same moment and gave him a strange, piercing glance. She strode toward him.
Amy had seen the movement as well. "Sara Morgenstern, Post correspondent," she
whispered in Gregg's ear. "Pulitzer, '76, for her work on the Great Jokertown
Riot. Cowrote the nasty article on SCARE in July's Newsweek. Just had a makeover
too. Looks totally different."
Amy's warning startled Gregg-he hadn't recognized her. Gregg remembered the
article; it had stopped just short of libel, intimating that Gregg and the SCARE
aces had been involved in government suppression of facts concerning the Swarm
Mother attack. He remembered Morgenstern from various press functions, always
the one with the hardball questions, with a sharp edge to her voice. He might
have taken her for a puppet, just for spite, but she had never come close to
him. Whenever they had been at the same affairs, she had stayed well away.
Now, seeing her approach, he froze for an instant. She had indeed changed. Sara
had always been slim, boyish. That was accentuated tonight; she wore tight,
black slacks and a clinging blouse. She'd dyed her hair blond, and her makeup
accentuated her cheekbones and large, faintly blue eyes. She looked
distressingly familiar.
Gregg was suddenly cold and afraid.
Inside, Puppetman howled at a remembered loss. "Gregg, are you all right?"
Ellen's hand touched his shoulder. Gregg shivered at his spouse's touch, shaking
his head.
"I'm fine," he said brusquely. He put on his professional smile,. moving out
from the corner. Alongside him Ellen and John flanked him in practiced



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choreography. "Ms. Morgenstern," Gregg said warmly, extending his hand and
forcing his voice into a calmness he didn't feel. "I think you know John, but my
wife Ellen ... ?"
Sara Morgenstern nodded perfunctorily toward Ellen, but her gaze stayed with
Gregg. She had an odd, strained smile on her face that seemed half-challenge and
half-invitation. "Senator," she said, " I hope you're looking forward to this
trip as much as I am."
She took his proffered hand. Without volition, Puppetman used the moment of
contact. As he had done with every new puppet, he traced the neural pathways
back to the brain, opening the doors that would, later, allow him access from a
distance. He found the locked gates of her emotions, the turbulent colors
swirling behind, and he greedily, possessively, touched them. He unfastened the
locks and pins, swung open the entrance.
The red-black loathing that spilled out from behind sent him reeling back. The
abhorrence was directed toward him, all of it. Totally unexpected, the fury of
the emotion was like nothing he'd experienced. Its intensity threatened to drown
him, it drove him back. Puppetman gasped; Gregg forced himself to show nothing.
He let his hand drop as Puppetman moaned in his head, and the fear that had