"Vonda N. McIntyre - Little Faces" - читать интересную книгу автора (McIntyre Vonda N)

Each of the companions tried to please herтАФno, Bahadirgul held back. Her most recent companion had
always been restrained in its approaches, fierce in its affections when it achieved release. Now, instead of
squirming toward her center, it relaxed and blew streams of delicate bubbles from the air in its residual
lungs.

Yalnis smiled, and when she closed herself off from the companions, she shut Bahadirgul away more
gently than the others. She did not want to consider any of the companions now. Zorargul had been the
best, the most deeply connected, as lively and considerate as her first lover.

Tears leaked from beneath her lashes, hot against her cheeks, washing away when she submerged. She
looked up at the stars through the shimmering surface, through the steam.

She lifted her head to breathe. Water rippled and splashed; air cooled her face. The companions
remained underwater, silent. Yalnis's tears flowed again and she sobbed, keening, grieving, wishing to
take back the whole last time of waking. She wanted to change all her plans. If she did, Seyyan might
take it as a triumph. She might make demands. Yalnis sneaked a look at the messages her ship kept
ready for her attention. She declined to reply or even to acknowledge them. She felt it a weakness to
read them. After she had, she wished she had resisted.

Why did you tantalize and tease me? Seyyan's message asked. You know this was what you wanted. I'm
what you wanted.

Yalnis eliminated everything else Seyyan had sent her.

"Please refuse Seyyan's messages," she said to her ship.

"True," it replied.

"Disappear them, destroy them. No response."

"True."

"Seyyan, you took my admiration and my awe, and you perverted it," she said, as if Seyyan stood before
her. "I might have accepted you. I might have, if you'd given me a chance. If you'd given me time. What
do we have, but time? I'll never forgive you."

The bath flowed away, resorbing into the ship's substance. Warm air dried her and drew off the steam.
She wrapped herself in a new swath of ship silk without bothering to give it a design. Some people went
naked at home, but Yalnis liked clothes. For now, though, a cloak sufficed.

She wandered through her ship, visiting each chamber in the current configuration, looking with
amazement and apprehension at the daughter ship growing in the ship's lower flank. What would the
person be like, this new being who would accompany this new ship into the universe? She thought she
had known, but everything had changed.

She returned, finally, to her living chamber.

"Please defend yourself," she said.

"True."