"Mary Rosenblum - Jumpers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rosenblum Mary)

Unable to take his eyes away from her smile, Joaquin grasped the handle. Fear was about to seize him,
freeze him. It occurred to him in a blinding flash of revelation that never once had his flesh really been at
risk, that even when the soldiers had burst into the hut, he had known that it was just another of his
father's games, that he was safe. Joaquin clenched his teeth and leaped from the limb. The dizzy rush of
motion made him gasp, intoxicated him with the rush of flying and risk. Then the far limb jolted his feet
and he stumbled forward, seized by an instant of terror before his knees banged the platform. The mat of
woven leaves gave beneath his weight, bouncing so that a box tumbled from the stack. The corner hit his
wrist, and he sat up slowly, rubbing it.

Zlia leapt after him and, with a single tug, freed the line. Joaquin shivered as the thin coils fell to the
platform.

"It only comes loose at my touch. Not yours." She was laughing at him as she coiled it up. "It is made of
smart-fiber, Silvano says. He gave it to me. He says he gives me things to hear me laugh." She finished
wrapping it around her waist and tucked the end securely into place.

She's his lover, Joaquin realized. The images that accompanied that thought were vivid and very
disturbing, and he banished them by looking around the canopied space. The little platform was obviously
a temporary home for Zlia and Silvano. A rumpled sleeping bagтАФdouble-sizedтАФa few dishes, a water
jug, and a tiny solar-powered burner made up the furnishings. Joaquin began to assemble his detector.
He didn't really expect to find everything intact, but to his surprise, nothing was seriously damaged. There
was even juice left in the storage batteries. Silvano must have intervened before the pretend-kidnappers
could break anything.

The frogs told them to take a nap. He almost smiled, getting it finally. "Can your frogs really make me
sleep?" He glanced over his shoulder as he ran a test sequence on a Rothberg inverter.

Zlia searched in her hair, then offered a small black frog with neon green spots.

"Wow." He began to set the units out on the gently swaying platform, testing the floor carefully. "I never
knew that they could do that. Frogs, I mean."

"They are all gifts. From Silvano." The sadness was back in her voice. "He sells their sweat. So that
someday he can buy my eggs."

"What?" Hands full of brightly colored leads, he blinked at her. "What eggs?"

"I should feed you. Silvano said so." And she leaped from the branch, arrowing outward on a trajectory
that left Joaquin doubting gravity. He shrugged and went back to assembling and testing his apparatus,
trying not to think about her.

Everything worked, but some of the software involved was temperamental and needed persuading. It
wasn't until he found himself squinting at the screen that he realized it was getting dark. His watch was
missing, but the first patter of drops confirmed that this wasn't sunset. The afternoon rains! In the hut with
its umbrella-generator it hadn't mattered. He scrambled to his feet, spreading his body ineffectively over
the stacked instruments. The patter increased to a sudden roar above his head. Water began to drip onto
the roof of leaves above him, and the woven branches that walled the platform shook as a gust of wind
found its way down through the canopy.