"Linnea Sinclair - Rhapsody In The Key of Death" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sinclair Linnea)

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At least, not any longer. Lunazula was in my jurisdiction. My vacation,
possibly my career, had ended with that first bolt of fear.
The main dining room held about forty people. Their anger, their annoyance
and their fear flowed over me like a turbulent tide before I even reached the elegant
beveled glass doors, now flanked by two more officers in uniforms. I put up the
mental wall IтАЩd learned to erect years ago, living on crowded deep space stations,
with four thousand, not merely forty, people thinking, feeling, screaming, crying
constantly in my mind.
Their emotions dampered, but didnтАЩt completely go silent. I listened to their
annoyed, petulant hum. Voices rose and fell. Soft music filled the quieter spaces. I
thought of Truedell. He wouldтАЩve been as interested as I was, but for a different
reason.
 A buffet to tempt every palate lined the far wall. I opted for a cup of hot tea.
The cups were a delicate flowered porcelain; my tea brewed through a silver strainer.
I could smell a hint of chocolate lacing the coffee nearby. No synjav, here.
No happy faces, either. Guests, some in bathrobes bearing monograms, some
still in evening dress, clustered unhappily around tables topped with pale pink
tablecloths. IagoтАЩs detectives stood out like drab pigeons in a cage full of Keprian
peacocks.
тАЬInsulting! Outrageous!тАЭ A manтАЩs voice, high and strident, cut across the low
rumble in the room. No hush followed his outburst. Evidently this kind of thing had
been going on for a while, uninfluenced by the soothing piano music in the
background.
I ignored the complainer, too. His wasnтАЩt the voice I was listening for.
Nor was anyone elseтАЩs. I wandered, sipping tea, catching threads of
conversation. Listening for a distinctive low growl, a barely imperceptible drawing
out of the vowels. Heard only the educated and cultured versions of the five most
common dialects in the Intergalactic Conclave. And much discontent.
Damn it all! I was sure heтАЩd be here. There hadnтАЩt been time for him to travel
down ten floors and out of the hotel. Security cameras showed no one exiting the
building in the few moments between the time of TruedellтАЩs murder and the sealing
of the hotel. If I were an assassin, the place IтАЩd want to be was in a crowd, one of
the guests. Or one of the staff, but no. Staff were known to each other and in a
resort like this, had been security-cleared. A killer needed anonymity. What was it
TruedellтАЩs mentor, Dionosio, had taught him? There was anonymity in a crowd. But
also watchers. I tried to be one of the watchers.
The music changed, more upbeat, a little louder. I turned. A young man, pale
hair pulled back at the nape of his neck, ran his hands over the keys of a large black
piano in the corner of the dining room. One of the guests, bored, passing the time?
He wore a tuxedo, not unlike the ones the casino dealers wore. No, not a guest. The
hotelтАЩs pianist. IтАЩd seen him earlier, playing in the lounge.
So had Truedell. This must have been the musician heтАЩd so enjoyed. He was
young, late twenties at most, with bright blue eyes. I wondered if heтАЩd noticed
Truedell with someone, or if Truedell had spoken to him, complimenting him on his
skill. I hadnтАЩt picked up any conversations like that in his EIIs, but I no longer had
the faith in those, or in my deteriorating abilities.
The music stopped at the end of the light tune. I put my empty teacup on the
tray of a hovering тАЩdroid server. A woman with short, dark curls and a pale blue
bathrobe stepped into the aisle as I was halfway to the piano, raised her hand.