"Justina Robson - Quantum Gravity 01 - Keeping it Real" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robson Justina)

think straight. She was dismayed at how unprepared she was. It wasn't his looks or his rock star status
that made her feel sick with nervous tension. It was the sense of his otherness, the combination of how
nearly human he appeared and how inhuman he really was.
He'd made no effort to hide, but she hadn't seen him. His natural magical aura had concealed him from
her attention and now her technologically-assisted senses could feel the slight charge of it as he stepped
closer. This elvish aetherial body, larger than his physical body and moving independently of it, reached
out ahead of him and touched her with slippery, invisible coils. His andalune, after which the great bridge
of Bay City was named, was as natural to him as her own skin was to her. Its curious touch was another
kind of glance, nothing more, but the unwanted investigation made her back away one step even under
her tightest control and she had to look away. Lila remembered other andalune touches like this one that
were neither kind nor merely indifferent. And then, almost before it was there, it had gone away,
satisfied that it knew everything it wanted to know about her. She could still taste a snap of lime in the air
and some half-remembered warning tried to rise in her mind, though she was so slugged on adrenal
suppressants it had nowhere to go. Her body wanted to run. Her mind was frozen. She gave him a
casual nod of recognition with a dip of her chin, as though she couldn't be more comfortable.
For a second she thought he looked surprised. She saw a moment of curiosity burning in the slight
widening of his large, slanted eyes.
'Hello, Lila,' Zal said. He didn't have an ordinary elf voice. Their normal speaking tones were very like
human voices with subtle harmonies buried inside but this one was smoky rather than bell-like. He didn't
exactly fit the mould of serene snottiness she had been braced for either, although his long ash-blond hair
and attenuated, pointy ears were exactly on theme. Lila had never seen an elf with dark eyes before.
Zal's were chestnut brown with darker rings around the iris. She was staring into them like any fool for a
good half a second before she composed herself. She turned aside and felt her face heat. The feeling she
was experiencing was startling, and nothing like loathing.
Zal arched one dark eyebrow at her in a laconic expression of amusement at her clear efforts to repel
all his natural glamour and Lila seethed with annoyance.
'I don't require your services,' he informed her. He took his coat up and put it on with insouciant ease,
then tilted his head, waiting for her to do something.
They always wait, Lila recalled, all trace of blush gone. They have the time. They like to watch and
see what silly things humans will do, given the opportunity. He could stand there till Christmas with that
false pretend-polite expression on his face.
Lila picked up the ring. It was a stupid thing to have given him in the first place, but Doublesafe hadn't
thought past their human security procedures with any imagination. There was no way he would wear it.
'Yeah well, you're not paying the bill,' she said calmly. She wished she could take the ring and stuff it
down his throat, but that would be only a short-term solution. Instead she put it in her jacket pocket and
hoped she'd think of something. 'It won't make any difference. Until Jelly is happy that all threats on your
life are gone, then where you go, I go.'
'Until you die?' he asked, both brows up for a second, taunting.
'Or until you do.'
Lila saw the ghost of a smile cross his face as he walked past her. His
gait was deceptively slow to look at, but he was fast. It was all she could do not to trot in order to keep
up.
At the bike he didn't pause, put his hands on the beautiful sunrise paintwork of the gas tank and swung
his leg over into the riding position. So much for the legendary elf aversion to machinery.
Lila knew that this was the moment when she had to take some control if she were ever going to stand
a chance. She didn't hesitate: walked up, put her hands on his waist and lifted him off her place and onto
the pillion seat. Then she kicked her leg high over the handlebars without waiting to see if her strength
had caused any surprises and sat down very hard and towards the back of her seat, rather hoping to do
him some minor damage.
The bike reacted immediately to her touch, reading her intent from the tension in her body, the speed