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

I donтАЩt do much any more. Except sit in the old spacerтАЩs bar on
Longbow and wait for tourists to contact me for a job. Then I plan the visit,
go to the wreck, plant some souvenirs, come back, pick up the tourists and
give them the thrill of their lives.

With no danger, no risk.

No excitement.

The opposite of what I used to do.

****

SheтАЩs land-born. I donтАЩt need to see her thick body with its heavy
bones to know that. Her walk says it all.

The space-born have a graceтАФa lightnessтАФto everything they do.
Not all are thin-boned and fragile. Some have parents who think ahead, who
raise them half in Earth Normal and half in zero-G. The bones develop, but
that graceтАФthat lightnessтАФit develops, too.

This woman has a heaviness, a way of putting one foot in front of the
other as if she expects the floor to take her weight. I used to walk like that. I
spent my first fifteen years mostly planet-bound in real gravity.

We have the same build, she and IтАФthat thickness which comes from
strong bones, the fully formed female body that comes from the good
nutrition usually found planetside.
 I used to fight both of those things until I realized they gave me an
advantage spacers usually donтАЩt have.

I donтАЩt break.

Grab a spacer wrong and her arms snap.

Grab me wrong, and IтАЩll bruise.

She sits down, says my name as if sheтАЩs entitled to, and then raises
her eyebrows as if they and not the tone of her voice provide the question
mark.

тАЬHowтАЩd you get in here?тАЭ I pull my drink across the scarred plastic
table and lean my chair against the wall. Balancing chairs feels like that
second after the gravity gets shut off but hasnтАЩt yet vanishedтАФa
half-and-half feeling of being both weighted and weightless.

тАЬI have an invitation,тАЭ she says and holds up the cheap St.
ChristopherтАЩs medal that houses this weekтАЩs guest chip. Station
management shifts the chip housing every week or two so the chips canтАЩt