"Alastair Reynolds - A Spy In Europa" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Alastair)

gleaned from the intercept.

They kissed.

"Good to see you Marius. It's been - what?"

"Nine years, thereabouts."

"How's Phobos these days?"

"Still orbiting Mars." He deployed a smile. "Still a dive."

"You haven't changed."

"Nor you."

At a loss for words, Vargovic found his gaze returning to the

informational readout accompanying the ventling exhibit. Only half

attentively, he read that the ventlings, motile in their juvenile phase,

gradually became sessile in adulthood, stilts thickening with deposited

sulphur until they were rooted to the ground like stalagmites. When they

died, their soft bodies dispersed into the ocean, but the tripods

remained; eerily regular clusters of orange spines concentrated around

active vents.

"Nervous, Marius?"

"In your hands? Not likely."

"That's the spirit."

They bought two mugs of mocha from a nearby servitor, then returned to the

ventling display, making what seemed like small-talk. During

indoctrination Cholok had been taught phrase-embedded three. The code

allowed the insertion of secondary information into a primary

conversation, by careful deployment of word-order, hesitation and sentence
structure.

"What have you got?" Vargovic asked.