"Elizabeth Moon - Serrano 3 - Winning Colors" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moon Elizabeth)

"It would exercise something besides your ingenuity," Cecelia said. "And you never know when physical
fitness will come in handy. You and Petris, for instanceтАФ"
Heris felt the heat in her face. She and Petris indeed. She struggled for something, anything, to say, and
blurted it out before her internal editor had a chance at it. "We have other ways of maintaining physical
fitness. . . ."
"I'll bet you have," Cecelia said, and smirked. Heris glared.
"Other than that." But she had to chuckle; she had done it to herself. "I don't know why I thought you'd
mellow after rejuvenation."
"I don't either," Cecelia said. "And I didn't. Mellow was never my virtue. But we've had even honors on this
one; I won't say any more about that man's crewman, whatever he is."
"Thank you," Heris said. "May I ask why you were looking at that stallion whose hocks you didn't like?"
"Rotterdam," Cecelia said. "Those people did a lot for me; they're old friends, of course, but . . . I want to do
something for them. Of course I can share the bloodstock I have thereтАФbut I've been doing that for years.
What I'm looking for is some outcross lines that will broaden their base, that they couldn't possibly afford on
their own."
"Is that all the planet does, raise horses?"
"Almost." Cecelia touched her screen, and brought up a graphic montage. "It's a combination of climate,
terrain, and the accidents of discovery and development. Horses are useful in a variety of ways in
colonization: self-replicating farm power, for instance. Pack animals in difficult terrain. Personal
transportation. But they're displaced if industrialization provides alternatives. So usually you have poor planets
with horsesтАФworkhorsesтАФand room to breed but no recreational bloodstock. Then you have industrial
planets with a demand for recreational horses, but those horses squeezed into less and less land. Rotterdam
was settled as an agricultural world, complete with draft horses. But its climate is far better suited to
permanent pasturage than grain farming. Someone apparently obtained some bloodstock semen and began
breeding recreational horses. . . ."
"How did they market them?" Heris asked. Horses, she remembered, shipped badly aboard spacecraft.
"With great difficulty. But somehow they got a colt nominated for a famous stakes race, and got him there
alive and capable of running. More than capable. That was BuccinatorтАФit was one of his descendants that I
rode at Bunny's. I bought into his syndicate as a young womanтАФ"
This made no sense to Heris, but the general plan did. "So you're going to find additional semen or whatever
for your friends on Rotterdam. . . ."
"Right. I've got a dozen cubes to reviewтАФordered them from bloodstock agentsтАФand then we'll go take a
look. So far most of Rotterdam's produce is semen and embryos. It's too far off the main shipways, and very
rarely can a group get together to haul mature animals someplace. When I first set up my stud there, I'd
planned to work on that . . . but things changed. . . . Anyway, if they have the quality, the money will follow.
And provide transport."
"Have you decided where to go first?"
"Wherrin Horse Trials. I've missed two of themтАФno reason to miss this time. I should pick up more ideas
there, breeders not yet with bloodstock agents, that sort of thing."
"I'd like to leave as soon as Koutsoudas is aboard," Heris said. "He's not the only problemтАФI know you
talked to your nephewтАФand you know that Lord Thornbuckle has asked me to take on Brun."
"I'm willing," Cecelia said. "The lawyers can handle my suit just as well without me. Better perhaps. They say
I interfere. . . . I didn't know it would affect Ronnie and Raffaele."
Heris thought of saying what she thought about the lawsuit, but considering her own family relations she
decided against it. She was hardly one to preach reconciliation with relatives.

Brigdis Sirkin hated being back on Rockhouse Major. Over on Minor, she had been able to pretend that they
weren't in the same system where Amalie died. Here, every shop window, every bar, every slideway and
bounce tube reminded her of Amalie. Here she had died, and into this station's recycler her physical cells
had gone, to become the elements of something else . . . even this meal. She shoved it away, disgusted