"Morgan, Richard - Woken Furies" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morgan Richard)

family don't do anything by halves and, as anyone -who's been Received can tell
you, they like to make a good impression. Gold-flecked black decor to match the
family crests on the walls, ambient subsonics to engender a tear-jerking sense that
you 're in the presence of nobility. Some Martian artefact in a corner, quietly
implying the transition of global custody from our long-vanished unhuman
benefactors to the firmly modern hand of the First Families oligarchy. The
inevitable holosculpture of old Konrad Harlan himself in triumphal planetary
discoverer' mode. One hand raised high, the other shading his face against the
glare of an alien sun. Stuff like that.
So here comes Takeshi Kovacs, surfacing from a sunken bath full of tank gel,
sleeved into who knows what new flesh, spluttering into the soft pastel light and
helped upright by demure court attendants in cutaway swimming costumes. Towels of
immense fluffiness to clean off the worst of the gel and a robe of similar material for
the short walk to the next room. A shower, a mirror -- better get used to that face,
soldier -- a new set of clothes to go with the new sleeve, and then on to the audience
chamber for an interview with a member of the Family. A woman, of course. There
was no way they'd use a man, knowing what they did about my background.
Abandoned by an alcoholic father at age ten, raised alongside two younger sisters,
a lifetime of sporadically psychotic reaction when presented with patriarchal
authority figures. No, it was a woman. Some urbane executive aunt, a secret
service caretaker for the Harlan family's less public affairs. An understated beauty
in a custom-grown clone sleeve, probably in its early forties, standard reckoning.
''Welcome back to Harlan's World, Kovacs-san. Are you comfortable?'
Yeah. You?'
Smug insolence. Envoy training conditions you to absorb and process environmental
detail at speeds normal humans can only dream about. Looking around,
the Envoy Takeshi Kovacs knows in split seconds, has known since the sunken bath
awakening, that he's in demand.
'I? You may call me Aiura.' The language is Amanglic, not Japanese, but the
beautifully constructed misunderstanding of the question, the elegant evasion of
offence without resorting to outrage, traces a clean line back to the First Families'
cultural roots. The woman gestures, equally elegantly. 'Though who I am isn 't
very important in this matter. I think it's clear to you who I represent.'
'Yes, it's clear.' Perhaps it's subsonics, perhaps just the woman's sober response to
my levity that dampens the arrogance in my tone. Envoys soak up what's around
them, and to some extent that's a contaminative process. You often find yourself
taking to observed behaviour instinctively, especially if your Envoy intuition grasps
that behaviour as advantageous in the current surroundings. 'So I'm on secondment.
'

Aiura coughs, delicately.

In a manner of speaking, yes.'

'Solo deployment?' Not unusual in itself, but not much fun either. Being part of
an Envoy team gives you a sense of confidence you can't get from working with
ordinary human beings.

'Yes. That is to say, you will be the only Envoy involved. More conventional
resources are at your disposal in great number.'