"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - The Room of Lost Souls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

a door into a forbidden place.

Still, she has paid me and she has given me free rein.

I sit at the built-in desk and move the money to all of my accounts. IтАЩm
going to have to create some new ones before I leave so that my holdings
are diversified. Before I do that, I pay for this berth for the next five years.

I had warned Riya that the recovery could take a long time. She
wanted it done right. After I heard her tales of the previous attempts, I knew
that part of the problem was sheтАЩd hired thieves and ruffians and risk-takers
who specialized in cross-system possession recovery.

SheтАЩd hired disposable people who usually committed
snatch-and-grabs. People who didnтАЩt care much for her mission or their own
lives.

People who wouldnтАЩt be missed.

In that, they were a lot like me.

Riya and I had finished the negotiations as I drank my coffee. She
showed me the device her people had used to get out of the Room. I
examined it. It looked unusual enough.

But she wouldnтАЩt give me its specs until I was ready to go to the
Room.

I was fine with that. It gave both of us an illusion of controlтАФme, the
ability to say I was done before I went into the Room; and her, the belief
that I had no idea how to use what she had shown me.
 WeтАЩd made a verbal record of our negotiations. Both of our attorneys
would work together to make a formal agreement that we would sign within
the month.

She seemed nervous and uncertain, while I was nervous and happy.
If someone had asked me before weтАЩd started the negotiations who would
feel what, I would have said that IтАЩd be the uncertain one while she would be
happy with all that weтАЩd done.

IтАЩd fully expected her to terminate before I arrived in my berth.

Instead she paid me.

I finish transferring the money. I contact and pay my attorney, notifying
her of her obligations in drafting this agreement.

Then I lean back in my chair.

For the first time since IтАЩve come to Longbow Station, balancing my