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

'Welcome back to Harlan's World, Kovacssan. 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.'

'That sounds good.'

'Let us hope so.'

'So what do you want me to do?'

Another delicate throat-clearing. 'In due course. May I ask, once again, if the sleeve is comfortable?'

'It seems very.' Sudden realisation. Very smooth, response at impressive levels even for someone used
to Corps combat custom. A beautiful body, on the inside at least. 'Is this something new from
Nakamura?'

'No.' Does the woman's gaze slant upward and left? She's a security exec, she's probably wired with
retinal datadisplay. 'Harkany Neurosystems, grown under offworld licence for KhumaloCape.'

Envoys aren't supposed to suffer from surprise. Any frowning I did would have to be on the inside.
'Khumalo? Never heard of them.'

'No, you wouldn't have.'
'Excuse me?'