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

sight, without notice to her work supervisor or anyone else, some forty days before her family came looking.
"The problem is, milord, that it's Patchcock. . . ." Bunny looked up.
"Yes?"
"I don't know if you knew . . . all about Patchcock."
"Not really. It was a nasty situation, is all I know, and someone in the Regular Space Service messed up in a
major way."
"I think perhaps you need to read the background briefs." That was far more assertive than Poisson's usual
approach, and Bunny stared.
"Very well. If you'llтАФ"
"Here they are." A stack of cubes it would take him hours to wade through, all marked with the security code
that meant they were encrypted and could be read only with all the room's security systems engaged. Bunny
glanced at Kevil, and sighed.
"Don't remind me that I volunteered for this job. I could cheerfully strangle his late majesty." Poisson, he
noticed, had the look he had always imagined concealed satisfaction at landing responsibility on someone
else.
The Patchcock affair, when they finally got it straight late that night, explained a lot of things . . . many more
than were explicated in the cubes, revealing as those were.
"That had to be the stupidest thing Ottala could have done," Kevil said, summing up the latest chapter in the
story. "Going undercover in a workers' organization would be risky enough right here in Castle RockтАФbut on
Patchcock! Didn't she know any history?"
"We didn't," Bunny pointed out. "If she thought it was just a military blunder, if she didn't know how her family
came to gain control of the investments thereтАФ"
"She must be dead, you know," Kevil said. "If she were alive, she'd have refreshed her emergency cache."
"Captive? Held for ransom?"
"No. My criminal experience tells me she's dead. They found her out somehow, stripped her of any
information they could pry out, and killed her. Eventually the Morrelines will figure that out too, and
thenтАФthen we'll have real trouble."
"Yes." Bunny thought about the Morrelines: he knew them in the casual way that all the Chairholders knew
each other, but they were not really in his set. They didn't hunt, for one thing. But he had dealt with them
more than once in business, and in the CouncilтАФthey were tough, aggressive, and very sore losers. That this
could be a self-description he recognized, but that didn't make the prospect of angry Morrelines any more
appealing.
"If we send Fleet back in there, it will only make things worseтАФ"
"If she's dead alreadyтАФ" If she was dead already, why bother? But he had to know what Ottala Morreline had
found, even if he couldn't bring her back. He sighed, and stretched his back out. The whole situation he'd
inheritedтАФjumped into, he reminded himselfтАФfelt dangerously mushy. Too many things he didn't know, past
and present. Too many ways to make mistakes even if he did know everything. And the image of his daughter
Brun intrudedтАФBrun had already involved herself in wild adventures, working her way across Familias space
as an ordinary spacer. If Brun heard about this, she would insist on going herself to find out about Ottala.
Where could he park her safely?
"At least," Kevil said, stretching in turn, "it'll be a change from this stupid bickering about rejuvenation. Those
poor bastards in the mines and factories on Patchcock have more substantial concerns."
Bunny nodded, but his thoughts kept running to Brun. Finally he thought of the one thing he might be able to
do; in the morning he would place a call to Heris Serrano.

"I must thank you again, for whatever you said to my daughter," Lord Thornbuckle said. He didn't look much
like Bunny in his dark formal suit, in the paneled office. He didn't intend to. "She was, I'm sure, about to do
something rash. What she told me afterwards was that she'd planned to run away and join the Regular Space
Service anonymouslyтАФbut I expect it was worse than that."
"NoтАФor at least, that's what she told me." Heris Serrano had been aboard the yacht, supervising the last of