"Serrano Legacy - 03 - Winning Colors" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moon Elizabeth)

The sooner they were off this station the better. Deep space was going to be a lot safer for everyone for a while.
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The Captains Guild dining room on Zenebra Station had the usual quiet, respectable atmosphere, not quite as stultifying as the Senior Officers' Club at a sector headquarters, but almost. Two tables away, a merchant captain in the uniform of a major line dined alone, without looking up; across the room, a quiet group of officers from another line chatted while waiting to be served.
Barin had recoiled from the menu's prices at first. "I'm treating you," Heris said. "Have something you like."
"It's all soа.а.а. fancy."
"Not really. Only a step up from any ordinary restaurant on dockside. You've been eating Academy chow too long. If you want to see fancy, you should see Lady Cecelia's tables. I couldn't believe it when I first went to work for her. She thinks every meal should be a work of art."
He wavered, uncertain. Heris took a guess, from his eye movements, and ordered for him, waving away his objections. "Maybe itis just curiosity, but if you don't like it you can always get yourself a basic cube of processed goo afterwards."
"But Lassaferan snailfish?"
"You wanted it; I could tell. You might like it; I do."
He relaxed, bit by bit, as he worked his way into the food with youthful appetite. Heris asked no questions, letting him tell her what he would about himself. Jerd and Gesta's oldest son, normal Fleet childhoodЧwhich meant in and out of service creches. Academy prep school: he had graduated fifth in his class there. Academy: he had been second to a brilliant daughter of an admiral, who'd been killed in her first assignment when a glitch in a powerplant readout turned out to be a real problem in the powerplant, not the readout. Heris wondered about that, after her aunt's report.Top Fleet officers are losing too many of their childrenЧthe best onesЧin accidents in the first two years out of the Academy. Of course those were the dangerous years. Youngsters full of book knowledge, eager to prove themselvesЧthey got into trouble. So had she. But someone had been there to get her out, and if her aunt was right, there were fewer rescues these days.
This boy, thoughЧhe was bright enough, and good enough. She liked the way he described his first tour, as ensign on a cruiser. He didn't reveal anything he shouldn'tЧeven though she was a family member and former Fleet officerЧand yet he didn't appear to be holding back.
"Communications," she mused, when he ran down. "You know, when I was commissioned, we didn't have FTL communications except from planetary platforms. I was onBoarhound when they mounted the first shipboard ansible, and at first it was only one-way, from the planet to us. That was still pretty exciting. Then they worked out how to get enough power for transmission."
"It's still not unlimited," he said, and flushed.
"No, I know that." She didn't tell him how. He didn't know about Koutsoudas and didn't need to. "But someday I expect they'll figure out ways to give us realtime communication in all situations. Something in jumpspace would be a real help." An understatement. A way to communicate in and out of jumpspace would radically change space warfare. "But that's beside the pointЧyou're going back to see the admiral?"
"Yes, sir. Ma'am."
Heris chuckled. "Either will do. Tell her from me that I don't entirely understand, but I have heard what she's saying. Can you do that?"
"Of course, sir."
"Good. And tell herЧtell her I love her."
He flushed again, but nodded. Heris was almost glad to see that embarrassment; an honest young man would be embarrassed to repeat such a message, but he would do it. Coming from him directly, it would have the effect she wanted.
She looked at the chronometer on the wall. "Sorry to leave you, but I've work scheduled. If there's anything I can do to assist, feel free to call on me." He pushed back his chair, with a last glance at a dessert guaranteed to cause heart failure in anyone over twenty, but Heris waved him down. "NoЧfinish that, don't waste it. I'll take care of everything on the way out. Give my regards to family." Meaning everyone but the aunt admiral; he could interpret that how he liked. But, polite to the end, he stood until Heris had left the dining room. She hoped he would sit back down and finish that dessert. He had earned it.
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The next day, Cecelia arrived without warning. "I had to take a standby seat on the shuttle," she explained. "People are leaving in droves, of course." Heris had noticed that; half the ships docked when they arrived had already left. "But I wanted to talk to you."
"Here, or en route to your next destination?" Heris asked. "If you want to leave, I need to file with the Stationmaster."
"Here for now. I might even go back down once more, to talk to Ari." Cecelia paused, and gave Heris a sharp look. "What's happened? Did you and Petris have a fight? You look upset about something."
"It's not Petris," Heris said, annoyed to feel the heat rising in her face. "It's my familyа.а.а. they sent someone to talk to me."
"About time." Cecelia kicked off her boots and wiggled her toes luxuriously. "Ahhh. I was standing in line for two hours. Standing in line is a lot worse than walking."
"Agreed," Heris said. She hoped Cecelia would stay on another topic, but that was too much to expect.
"Your family sent someone," she said. "I hope whoever it was crawled on his or her belly and licked your toes."
"Cecelia!" Despite herself, Heris couldn't help laughing. "What a disgusting thought! No, it was a very nice young man, just out of the Academy, my aunt admiral's grandson."
"Apologetic," Cecelia said.
"In a way. Not personally, but on behalf of. And she sent a datacube herself. It's justЧI'm still not sure I understand."
"I know I don't understand. Why didn't she help you?"
"She says she didn't know in time. She wants to talk to me about it, if it's convenient."
"And you?"
"I want to think it over," Heris said.
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"Heris, I want to ask you something."
"Of course." Heris seemed relaxed and alert at once, no tension in her face.
"Do I seem different since my rejuvenation? I don't mean the obviousа.а.а. something else."
Heris took a sip of coffee before answering. "The obviousЧyour body, your hair color. I'm not sure about the rest. A young person is supposed to have more energy, so I presume that along with a younger body, a healthier body, you have more intrinsic energy. Is that right?"
"Yes, but that's not exactlyЧ"
"Noа.а.а. I'm feeling my way. You are different, in behavior as well as body, but I'm not sure which caused which. You were neverа.а.а. ahа.а.а. passive." Cecelia snorted at that attempt to be tactful. Heris grinned at her. "Look, even as an old lady, you were energetic, feisty, and stubborn. Now your body's younger, and you're even more energetic, feisty, and stubborn. High-tempered. But I didn't know you when you were this age the first time around, so I can't say if you're changed."
That was the crux of it, right there. Heris hadn't been born when she had been forty. What she was right now wasn't really fortyЧit was eighty-seven in a forty-year-old mask. "I'm not really forty, Heris," she said, trying not to sound as frustrated and annoyed as she was. "I have all the experience of the next forty-seven years. All of it. What I need to know is whether the treatment changed meЧthe person I amЧand sent me off on a new course."
"Mmm. I would say that it had to. The course of a life without rejuvenation, for someone your ageЧyou were preparing to detach, to relinquish your grip on life itselfЧ"
"Notyet !" Cecelia said. "I was only eighty-four; I'd have had another twenty yearsЧ"
"But you'd given up competitive riding; you'd gradually reduced your social contacts. All signs that you accepted, however reluctantly, the evidence of age. You expected to enjoy your remaining years, but you weren't pushing toward anything new."
"True, I suppose." She didn't like to hear that analysis, but she could not deny the evidence.
"Now you've been put back, physically at least, to your most productive period. You have twenty to thirty years of vigorous activity before you begin the decline againЧunless you renew the process. That has to change your courseЧyou could not fail to act differently now than three years ago."
"I had a visitor, that manЧ"
"Yes." Heris's voice chilled; clearly she didn't like Pedar.