"Joel Rosenberg - Hour of the Octopus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rosenberg Joel C)

Joel Rosenberg
Hour of the Octopus
An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Ace edition / March 1994
All rights reserved. Copyright ┬й 1994 by Joel Rosenberg.
Cover art by Darrell K. Sweet
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by mimeograph or any other means, without permission.
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200 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016.
ISBN: 0-441-16975-9
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this one is for Susan Allison
Acknowledgments
I'm grateful for the help I've gotten with this one from Bruce Bethke, Peg Kerr Ihinger, and Pat
Wrede ; from Harry F. Leonard and Victor Raymond; from Beth Friedman, proofreadre, and Carol
Kennedy, copy editor.
I'd like to thank Ray Feist for the metal puz-zle Kami takes apart, but I spent far too many work
hours working it out, so I won't.
As always, special thanks to my agent, Eleanor "Darth" Wood, and to Felicia and Judy.
Part One
DEN OROSHTAI
PROLOGUE
The Hour of the Hare
"You may think of yourself as a master chef, in Bergeenen you may have actually been a master chef,
but this, my dear young cook, is Den Oroshtai, and this is your first morning in my kitchen, and as it is my
kitchen, you will learn; I trust you will find the experience pleasurable as we prepare breakfast for our
genial Lord Arefai and our somewhat more strict Lord Toshtai, a simple breakfast and a complex one.
"Don't think of time as a process. Think of it as a spice. You can no more measure it out as drops of
water from an hourglass than you would measure spoons of pepper for a sauce; you must add just a little,
tasting where possible, considering where not, until you have added just the right amount, no more, for
you can no more remove excess time from a dish than you can unsalt it.
"Ah: observe: the surface of the water gently roils; it is now ready. Cradle the egg in your palm, and
consider its temperature. Heat is just another manifestation of timeтАФ how long has the egg sat in the
bowl of cold well-water, and then, how long has it waited on the counter? Consider it all.
"Lower the egg gently into the water, and regard it. The objective is to coddle the egg, to indulge it, to
tease it at the simmer until the yolk has become thick without be-
coming hard, where it is still golden and languidly liquid rather than insipid yellow and tough, the white
gaining form and structure without becoming rubbery and chewy.
"Good. Oh? You wish to sit and stare at the boiling wa-ter until the egg is done. How very niceтАФand
who will prepare the rest of the simple breakfast?
"Oh. I talk too much, do I? I distract you from the bril-liance of your endeavors, is that so? Very well,
then; I will let you do it in your own fashion. What next? The apple, you say? Oh, good. Very good. Yes,
you slice the apple gently, delicately. Very nice. I very much like the rhythm of your knife against the
cutting board, and the slices are just of the right thinness to the taste of many, like that of a thin cracker.