"Alastair Reynolds - Spirey And The Queen" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Alastair)

"Oh, she will. Now she's glimpsed Yarrow's mind, she'll do all she can not
to lose it. Minds mean a lot to her - particularly in view of what the
Splinterqueens have in mind for the future. But don't expect miracles."
"Why not? We seem to be standing in one."
"Then you're prepared to believe some of what I've said?"
"What it means," I started to say -
But I didn't finish the sentence. As I was speaking the whole chamber
shook violently, almost dashing us off our feet.
"What was that?"
Wendigo's eyes glazed again, briefly.
"Your ship," she said. "It just self-destructed."
"What?"
A picture of what remained of Mouser formed in my head: a dulling nebula,
embedding the splinter. "The order to self-destruct came from Tiger's
Eye," Wendigo said. "It cut straight to the ship's quackdrive subsystems,
at a level the demons couldn't rescind. I imagine they were rather hoping
you'd have landed by the time the order arrived. The blast would have
destroyed the splinter."
"You're saying home just tried to kill us?"
"Put it like this," Wendigo said. "Now might not be a bad time to rethink
your loyalties."

Tiger's Eye had failed this time - but they wouldn't stop there. In three
hours they'd learn of their mistake, and three or more hours after that we
would learn of their countermove, whatever it happened to be.
"She'll do something, won't she? I mean, the wasps wouldn't go to the
trouble of building this place only to have Tiger's Eye wipe it out."
"Not much she can do," Wendigo said, after communing with the Queen. "If
home choose to use kinetics against us - and they're the only weapon which
could hit us from so far - then there really is no possible defense. And
remember there are a hundred other worlds like this, in or on their way to
the halo. Losing one would make very little difference."
Something in me snapped. "Do you have to sound so damned indifferent to it
all? Here we are talking about how we're likely to be dead in a few hours
and you're acting like it's only a minor inconvenience." I fought to keep
the edge of hysteria out of my voice. "How do you know so much anyway?
You're mighty well informed for someone who's only been here a day,
Wendigo."
She regarded me for a moment, almost blanching under the slap of
insubordination. Then Wendigo nodded, without anger. "Yes, you're right to
ask how I know so much. You can't have failed to notice how hard we
crashed. My pilots took the worst."
"They died?"
Hesitation. "One at least - Sorrel. But the other, Quillin, wasn't in the
ship when the wasps pulled me out of the wreckage. At the time I assumed
they'd already retrieved her."
"Doesn't look that way."
"No, it doesn't, and..." She paused, then shook her head. "Quillin was why
we crashed. She tried to gain control, to stop us landing..." Again
Wendigo trailed off, as if unsure how far to commit herself. "I think