"Ann Maxwell - The Jaws of Menx" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maxwell Ann)

MerielтАЩs eyes seemed to withdraw. тАЬYes,тАЭ said the woman simply. тАЬIтАЩll be affected.тАЭ
 Though Meriel said no more, Rhane sensed that her risk would be almost as great as his, тАЬIs Menx
so important to you?тАЭ
тАЬUnderstanding Menx is.тАЭ
тАЬI canтАЩt guarantee that IтАЩll give you enough information to understand Menx.тАЭ
тАЬAnd I canтАЩt guarantee that mental contact will be possible in the Jaws.тАЭ
Rhane hesitated, watching the crystal turn brilliantly within the womanтАЩs hands.
тАЬAre you certain that I have enough psi?тАЭ asked Rhane at last.
Meriel almost laughed. тАЬMore than enough. More than I have.тАЭ
Rhane looked up, startled, but the woman said nothing more.
тАЬDo whatever you have to,тАЭ said Rhane abruptly, тАЬbut get me to Menx.тАЭ
MerielтАЩs hand moved; crystal spun through the air. Rhane caught the glass expertly. Before he could
say anything, the woman had gone, leaving him alone in a silence punctuated by the sharp cry of crystal
beneath his fingers. He turned the glass over and over, staring down at its brilliant shroud of light,
wondering what he had agreed to.

II
It was nearly sunset when Rhane first saw the Mountains of Light. Range after range they rose,
serrated walls of stone and ice that separated the highlands from the lowlands where Menx cities coiled
like creamy snakes along the humid river margins. The mountaintops burned orange and gold, lines of
flame frozen against an amethyst sky.
Beneath the flyer the land lifted in long, gentle swells that gradually became the foothills of the
Mountains of Light. The countryside was open, but no signs of people showed. Menx was thinly
populated, with most of the people concentrated along lowland rivers. Except for droves of wild loris,
Rhane had seen no signs of life since midday.
Yet he had the uneasy feeling that he was not alone. He put the flyer on hover and looked back
through the transparent canopy. His intent, pale eyes saw neither movement nor a telltale flash of metal.
Behind him there was only empty sky and a rumpled plain of smokegrass motionless beneath the orange
light of a falling sun. Ahead, nothing moved up the long rise into the wooded foothills. He was definitely
alone. Whoever had been following him had given up when he crossed into the tribal lands of the
shaylтАЩm.
Rhane pulled a caplike arrangement of metal and crystal wires onto his head. The psitran was still
new to him, a tool and a concept with which he was not really at ease. He glanced, around once more,
quickly, then settled back into his straps and concentrated on the code that would link him to Meriel.
The contact was immediate and clear. Rhane wondered which of the thousands of Concord planets
Meriel was on, then rejected the thought as irrelevant. He focused his mind on the highly compressed
mental language of the Carifil. With his simple matrix of mindspeech went multilevel images and emotions,
an edited version of the hours since he had stepped into an Access on Siol and emerged an instant later
on Menx.
I was followed until I crossed the Shadow River. Apparently that was the boundary separating
lowland from highland Menx. The flyer still works, but it wonтАЩt be long before IтАЩm walking.
There was a pause while Meriel digested RhaneтАЩs sensory impressions, as well as his haunted feeling
of other life watching him and the undercurrent of angry rage of CezineтАЩs death that the very smells of
Menx provoked in Rhane.
No questions, responded Meriel, but her words were rich with sympathy and concern. Then, almost
at the level of reflex, Guard your back.
The contact dissolved, leaving Rhane alone again. He pulled off the psitran and pressed key points
along its glistening structure. The psitran reshaped itself into an armband that fit snugly beneath the sleeve
of his shirt.
With long, hard fingers, Rhane rubbed through his hair to his scalp, trying to ease the headache that