"Liaden Universe - 04 - Plan B" - читать интересную книгу автора (Miller Steve)

"Who put the clan in disgrace by leaving," tel'Vosti corrected. "Be precise, Emrith."

"It is disgrace to ignore the delm's order!"

"But she never did ignore itЧas you well know. She merely asked leave to postpone contract wedding until love's seed should bear fruit. Tamishon was in no great hurry, being content to know the contract was valid and eventually would be fulfilled. Four month's delay was no cause to abort the babe." He turned to Miri and bowed slightly, indicating fuller information forthcoming.

"The lad was dead, you seeЧshe'd get no other child from him. And Baan Tiazan was a tyrant who ruled both his daughters hard, eh, Emrith?" He moved his shoulders when she gave no answer, amusement back in his eyes.

"She was not always dutiful, understandЧthat would be unlike her name. But she acquiesced in the large things, and made shift to come the sophisticate, in company."

Miri shook herself. "She ran away to have her kid," she finished, in Terran, too shaken to sort through sleep-learned modes. "She crashed on Surebleak and couldn't get homeЕ"

"Is that what came of her?" tel'Vosti asked softly. His Terran was better than the delm's. "We had wondered."

She shook herself again, ran the Rainbow, fast, to get distance from the shock of the picture and the tension focused now on her. "I'm guessing," she told tel'Vosti. "She's dressed like a pilotЧand there ain't any reason to choose Surebleak, when you got the whole galaxy ahead."

"So," he said, and looked ready to say more.

"There will be a gene test," Emrith Tiazan snapped. "Med Tech, attend your duty!"

The tech came to her feet, looking open-mouthed from the picture to Miri. She looked finally at the old lady and bowed, rearranging her face into an expression of cool interest.

"As you say," she murmured, and drew a flat kit from her utility pocket. "If the young lady will attend me hereЕ"

The blue dress felt nice.

It looked nice, too, Miri decided. In fact, she looked amazingly respectable for a woman who had lately been a mercenary master sergeant, a bodyguard, a fugitive from justice, a woman of all work, and a singer.

Whether she looked respectable enough to please the circus gathering in the reception room below was something she'd find out far too soon.

She took one last turn before the mirror, admiring the way the bluestone necklace lay just right against her throat. She was wearing her hair loose, held back with a set of deceptively simple silver combs. Central stores, located in the cavernous belowstairs had provided dress and combs. The necklace and matching ring were hers, gifts from Val Con, from a time when gifts from Val Con were potentially deadly.

"Very elegant," she told her reflection, and bowed pleasure at making acquaintance, remembering to include the hand-gesture one used toward newly-met kin.

"Gods," she said, and came slowly erect, as if the woman in the mirror might jump her. "Oh, gods, Robertson, what the hell have you gotten yourself into?"

Val Con's dressing roomЧthe "apartment" set aside for their use was bigger than Zhena Trelu's whole house, back on VandarЧwas on the opposite side of the bedroom. There were three other roomsЧa parlor, an office and a bookroom, plus a bathroom the size of Lytaxin spaceport and a balcony that looked out over the East Garden.

A huge bed commanded the bedroom. Flowering vines grew up two of the posts and all over the canopy, dripping long tendrils like flowering curtains around the sides. Miri shook her head. LiadensЕ A whole room just to dress in, a garden growing in the bedroom, and a bunch of other stuff, here and there, apparently just done for pretty. She bit her lip, recalling the apartments she'd lived in as a kid, an endless succession of rats, peeling synth-lam walls and near-paneless windows leaking Surebleak's frigid winter winds.

"Forget it, Robertson," she whispered; "you ain't going back there. Never going back there."

The bed-flowers were pale blue with soft white stripes, lightly and agreeably perfumed. On impulse, she pulled one free and tucked it behind an ear as she continued across the cream-and-blue carpet to Val Con's dressing room.

He caught her eyes in the mirror as the door opened, and smiled.

"Cha'trez."

She tried to smile backЧsaw her reflection's mouth wobble and then straighten in distress as the big gray eyes got bigger, taking in the ruffled white shirt, the rich dark trousers, the green ear-drop and finger-ringЧall the accouterments of a Liaden gentlemen about to attend a formal dinner.