"Alastair Reynolds - Beyond the Aquila Rift" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Alastair)

through with this. Not yet.

"End it," I tell Greta.

Greta steps toward Suzy. Suzy reacts, but she isn't quick enough. Greta pulls something from her
pocket and touches Suzy on the forearm. Suzy drops like a puppet, out cold. We put her back into
the surge tank, plumb her back in and close the lid.

"She won't remember anything," Greta says. "The conversation never left her short term
memory."

"I don't know if I can go through with this," I say.

Greta touches me with her other hand. "No one ever said this was going to be easy."

"I was just trying to ease her into it gently. I didn't want to tell her the truth right out."

"I know," Greta says. "You're a kind man, Thorn." Then she kisses me.

I remembered Arkangel as well. That was about where it all started to go wrong. We just didn't know it
then.

We missed our first take-off slot when customs found a discrepancy in our cargo waybill. It wasn't
serious, but it took them a while to realize their mistake. By the time they did, we knew we were going to
be sitting on the ground for another eight hours, while in-bound control processed a fleet of bulk carriers.

I told Suzy and Ray the news. Suzy took it pretty well, or about as well as Suzy ever took that kind of
thing. I suggested she use the time to scour the docks for any hot syntax patches. Anything that might
shave a day or two off our return trip.

"Company authorized?" she asked.

"I don't care," I said.

"What about Ray?" Suzy asked. "Is he going to sit here drinking tea while I work for my pay?"

I smiled. They had a bickering, love-hate thing going. "No, Ray can do something useful as well. He can
take a look at the q-planes."

"Nothing wrong with those planes," Ray said.

I took off my old Ashanti Industrial bib cap, scratched my bald spot and turned to the jib man.

"Right. Then it won't take you long to check them over, will it?"

"Whatever, Skip."

The thing I liked about Ray was that he always knew when he'd lost an argument. He gathered his kit and
went out to check over the planes. I watched him climb the jib ladder, tools hanging from his belt. Suzy
got her facemask, long black coat and left, vanishing into the vapor haze of the docks, boot heels clicking