"Charles Stross - Merchant princes 02 - The Hidden Family" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

"Blood is thicker than water," BrilK commented. "Why don't you want to take it?"

Paulette sighed. "Do I tell her?" she asked Miriam.

"Not yet." Miriam looked thoughtful. "But I promised myself a few days back that
anything / start up will be clean. That good enough for you?"

"Yeah." Paulette turned toward the kitchen doorway, then paused. "Brilliana? Is
it okay if I call you Brill?"

"Surely!" The younger woman beamed at her.

"Oh. Well, uh, this is the kitchen. I was going to make some fresh coffee, but I
figure if you're staying here for a while I ought to start by showing you where
things are and how not toтАФ" She glanced at Miriam. "Do they have electricity?"
she asked. Miriam shook her head minutely. "Oh sweet Jesus! Okay, Brill, the
first thing you need to learn about the kitchen is how not to kill yourself.
See, everything works by electricity. That's kind ofтАФ"

Miriam picked up a bundle of official papers and a pen, and wandered out into
the front hall. It's going to be okay, she told herself. Paulie 's going to
mother-hen her. Two days and she '11 know how to cross the road safely, use a
flush toilet, and work the washing machine. Two weeks, and if Paulie didn't kill
her, she'd be coming home late from nightclubs with a hangover. If she didn't
just decide that the twenty-first century was too much for her, and hide under
the spare bed. Which, as she'd grown up in a world that hadn't got much past the
late medieval, was a distinct possibility. Wouldn't be a surprise; it's too much
for me at times, Miriam thought, contemplating the stack of forms for declaring
the tax status of a limited liability company in Massachusetts with a sinking
heart.

That evening, after Paulette and Miriam visited the bank to open a business
account and deposit the checks, they holed up around Paulie's kitchen table. A
couple of bottles of red wine and a chicken casserole went a long way toward
putting Brill at her ease. She even managed to get over the jittery fear of
electricity that Paulie had talked into her in the afternoon to the extent of
flipping light switches and fiddling with the heat on the electric stove. "It's
marvelous!" she told Miriam. "No need for coal, it stays just as hot as you want
it, and it doesn't get dirty! What do all the servants do for a living? Do they
just laze around all day?" "Um," said Paulette. One glance told Miriam that she
was

suffering a worse dose of culture shock than the young transporteeтАФher shoulders
were shaking like jelly. "Like, that's the drawback, Brill. Where would you have
the servants sleep, in a house like this?"

"Why, if there were several in the bedchamber you so kindly loanedтАФoh. I'm to
drudge for my keep?"