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

"I wasтАФ" But no one was listening. Shouts, growls, curses, those hands tight on her arms, and Sikar staring
at her with utter contempt.
"Rich girl," he said. "This is not a game."
Before she died, she wanted to revise her earlier opinion, and say that some conspirators tasted of neither
vanilla nor chocolate, but of blood. But she could not speak, and no one would have listened if she had.
Castle Rock: the former king's offices
Midafternoon already, and they'd hardly made a dent in the day's work. Lord Thornbuckle leaned back in his
chair and stretched. "I could be angry with Kemtre about this, too: because he was an idiot, I have to sit here
doing his work."
"You wanted the job." Kevil Mahoney, formerly an independent and successful attorney, had agreed to help
his friend in the political crisis left by the king's resignation. "Am I supposed to sympathize? I could be in
court, showing offтАФ"
"As if you'd miss it. No, we're doing the right thing, if we can pull it off."
"If? The eminent Lord Thornbuckle has doubts?"
"Your old friend Bunny has doubts. Nothing makes a rabbit nervous like the predator who pretends not to see
him. We haven't heard anything from the Benignity; by now, I expected at least one raid."
"Don't stare at that fox too long, my friend: there are wolves in the world too."
"As if I didn'tтАФ" He paused, as his deskcomp chimed, and flicked the controls. "Yes?"
"Sorry, milord. An urgent signal from Patchcock. Shall I transfer, or bring it in?"
"Bring it," Bunny said. "And the coffee, if it's ready." He would have that, at least, no matter what the trouble
was.
One of the senior clerksтАФPoisson, he thought the name wasтАФcame in with a cube, followed by two juniors
with a trolley. Poisson waited until they had left before handing over the cube.
"It's partly encrypted, milord, but I read the part that wasn't. It's the same region on Patchcock where the
troubles were before, and apparently a Family heir has gone missing."
Family. Bunny could hear the capital letter that elevated mere genetic relationship to political powerтАФnot just
a family, but a Family, one of the Chairholding Families.
"Ottala Morreline, the second oldest but designated heir ofтАФ"
"Oscar and Vitille Morreline, Vorey sept of the Consellines. Right." One of his own daughter's schoolmates.
He remembered BubblesтАФno, she was calling herself Brun nowтАФtalking about her. Brun hadn't liked her; he
remembered that much, though he didn't remember why. The Consellines . . . that extended family had over a
dozen Chairs in Council; the Vorey sept, though the minor branch, had five. The Morrelines held four of them.
"Kidnapped?" he asked.
"Ah . . . no. It seems she had disguised herself as a Finnvardian and infiltrated a workers' groupтАФ"
"A Morreline?" The Morrelines had, for the past two centuries at least, chosen to emphasize their darker
ancestry. And the video of Ottala that came up when he inserted the cube showed a dark-skinned,
dark-haired young woman. A beauty, Bunny noted, remembering now that he had seen her at some social
function a year or so before. She had matured, as Brun had, showing more bone structure. But how had this
girl imitated a pale, blue-eyed Finnvardian?
"The family located the skinsculptor. She bought a four hundred day depigmentation package, bleached her
hair, wore blue contact lensesтАФ"
"Why didn't she get an eye job while she was at it? What if she'd dropped a lens?" That was Kevil Mahoney,
cross-examining as usual.
Poisson shrugged. "I couldn't say, sir. When she didn't turn up for her younger brother's seegrin, the family
popped her emergency cache, and found her last report. She included a vid of herself after she adopted the
disguise, and said she planned to involve herself in a workers' organization to see what it felt like."
"Ummm." Bunny watched the cube readout. Ottala's disguised self looked very different, he had to admitтАФif
not quite Finnvardian, at least nothing like the Morreline heir. He wondered if she'd had a temporary bone job
tooтАФher face seemed to have changed shape as well as color. According to the readout, she had had no
trouble buying false IDs, and getting a job in an assembly factory on Patchcock. But she'd dropped out of