"Will McCarthy - Bloom" - читать интересную книгу автора (McCarty Sarah)

Yes, of course, I might have trouble picking out the right ship in the crowd.

"I'd like you to meet someone," he went on, nudging one of the other men out into the light. Then all three
of them were picking their way through scaffolding, approaching me with hands extended. "Darren
Wallich, John Strasheim. John Strasheim, Darren Walhch.

"Aha," I said, nodding to the tall, pepper-haired man Lottick had indicated and accepting the handshake
he offered. Firm, too firm. "A pleasure to meet you."

Darren Wallich was an Immunity type of some sort, a doctor, and would be Pasteu's captain when the
time came. One of the six people I'd be sharing the next umpty-ump weeks withтАФI'd better be pleased
to meet him.
Wallich's face, draped loosely in the manner of faces entering their fifth or sixth decade, drew upward
into a smile at my expression, as if aware of what I was thinking. Probably he was thinking the same
thing.

"This other man is Tosca Lehne," Lottick said to me, flapping a hand in the air between us as if trying to
form some invisible connection. Maybe doing something meaningful on his zee-spec, or maybe not. It's
hard not to notice that these devices, so rarely removed, have brought us a whole new body language,
have encouraged us more than ever to speak with our hands, to sketch invisible lines in the air whether or
not they'll be turned into real lines in the specs of our audience.

"Hallo," Lehne said to me, and I shook his hand as well. This man seemed more reluctant, more truculent.
He was the inventor of t-balance, or one of the inventors, but I didn't know much more about him than
that. His arms were thick and hairless, his jaw square, the pads of his hand disconcertingly soft. Too
many years, I thought, of working only with abstractions, of lifting his weight against too little gravity. A
hard, still-youthful body gone reluctantly to flab.

"You don't sound happy," I observed.

"He doesn't like this idea much," Wallich said, grinning. "Leaving home for the mission and all, but hey, I
wanted to be sure we had the best possible job on the camouflage, so I suggested he come along with
us to be sure. I bet that's worth a few extra minutes' cross-checking, eh?" He laughed.

Tosca Lehne did not appear amused. Well, who could blame him? I wasn't thrilled at our prospects
myself.

"Well, we're happy to have both of you aboard," Lottick said to Lehne and myself, in the same tone of
official friendliness I'd heard back at his office. "This is a fine crew we're putting together, a fine crew. I
couldn't put my trust in better hands."

His tone was not a bad one, I hasten to add. Manipulative, yes, but there was a conspiratorial edge to it
as well, as if the manipulation were a private joke between the three of us.

Wallich chuckled. "We can be spared, you mean."

"No." Lottick grew more serious. "Not at all. Not at all."

"Some have better things to do," Lehne muttered.