"Robertson, R Garcia - Gone To Glory" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robertson R Garcia Y)

The yurt was dank and smoky, walled with soot and skins -- aside from body paint
and tattoos, Thals did not bother with decoration. What he was looking for sat
in the back, amazingly alive. Alert brown eyes ringed with fatigue stared back
at him, hardly believing what they were seeing. "Lila Battle, I presume?"

She managed a nod. Tuch-Dah methods were crude and pitiless. To keep Lila in
place a long yoke was fitted around her neck, made from two heavy lengths of
wood lashed together with leather. Her hands were free, but the ends of the yoke
were out of reach, anchored to the bed of the yurt. She could move enough to
feed herself and attend to body functions, but could not reach the knots holding
the yoke in place.

As he cut Lila loose, Ellenor Battle came crawling in, dragging her wings. She
hurriedly strapped her medikit around Lila's forearm. Mother and daughter were
reunited in the fetid interior of a Tuch-Dah yurt, a touching moment lasting
about a nanosecond. Lila was clearly Ellenor's daughter, and neither was given
to excess sentiment. Before they had finished hugging, Ellenor wanted to know
what had happened, and Lila was telling them.

"Hello did it. The bastard flagged us down for a face-to-face. The next thing I
knew, I was being bundled up and given to the Tuch-Dahs."

Defoe had suspected something of the sort -- it wasn't in Willungha's nature to
mix with Homo sapiens, either as friends or enemies. Full-fledged humans had to
be behind this. But he was sorry to find out it was Hello. He had liked the
arrogant asshole.

Hauling out the recorder, he gave Lila a look at her "last stand." She shook her
head. "I wish I had put up that fight, but I never saw it coming." She knew
nothing about the fate of her ship and team.

"Dead and burned," Ellenor told her daughter bluntly. Everything else had been
digitally programmed straight into the dimwitted recorder's memory. A decent
scheme, but not foolproof. The chance selection of Lila's recorder had made her
mother suspicious. While Defoe was always willing to believe the worst.

"Why didn't he just kill me?" Lila wondered. Having spent the last few days
bound in the back of a Tuch-Dah yurt, she was in many ways the most amazed.

"You are his insurance shot." Defoe set the recorder next to his knee. "A good
hunter always has an extra charge handy, to insure his prey is nailed. The crash
and fake recording were not enough to thoroughly implicate the Tuch-Dahs. But by
the time your body turned up, it would be obvious who had you." Willungha's
people probably had no idea why Hello wanted one of his females carted about
against her will. But the Thal he had made the deal with fought to keep up his
end. Touching in a terrible way.

"But why do this at all?" For once Ellenor looked at a loss. "Why wipe out our
team? Why blame it on the Tuch-Dahs?"