"Charles Stross - Merchant princes 03 - The Clan Corporate" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

"Yes, Mother."
After a couple of minutes, the duchess spoke. "You're not happy."
"No."
"And it's not just-him."
"Correct." Her hem twitched once more before Helge managed to control the urge
to tap.
The duchess sighed. "Do I have to drag it out of you?"
"No, Iris."
"You shouldn't call me that here. Bad habits of thought and behavior, you
know."
"Bad? Or just inappropriate? Liable to send the wrong message?"
The duchess chuckled. "I should know better than to argue with you, dear!" She
looked serious. "The wrong message in a nutshell. Miriam can't go home, Helge.
Not now, maybe not ever. Thanks to that scum-sucking rat-bastard defector the
entire Clan network in Massachusetts is blown wide open and if you even think
about going-"
"Yeah, yeah, I know, there'll be an FBI SWAT team staking out my backyard and
I'll vanish into a supermax prison so fast my feet don't touch the ground. If
I'm lucky," she added bitterly. "So everything's locked down like a code-red
terrorist alert; the only way I'm allowed to go back to our world is on a
closely supervised courier run to an underground railway station buried so
deep I don't even see daylight; if I want anything-even a box of tampons-I
have to requisition it and someone in the Security Directorate has to fill out
a risk assessment to see if it's safe to obtain; and, and . . ." Her shoulders
heaved with indignation.
"This is what it was like the whole time, during the civil war," the duchess
pointed out.
"So people keep telling me, as if I'm supposed to be grateful! But it's not as
if this is my only option. I've got another identity over in world three and-"
"Do they have tampons there?"
"Ah." Helge paused for a moment. "No, I don't think so," she said slowly. "But
they've got cotton wool." She fumbled for a moment, then pulled out a
pen-sized voice recorder. "Memo: business plans. Investigate early patent
filings covering tampons and applicators. Also sterilization methods-dry
heat?" She clicked the recorder off and replaced it. "Thanks." A lightning
smile that was purely Miriam flashed across her face and was gone. "I should
be over there," she added earnestly. "World three is my project. I set up the
company and I ought to be managing it."
"Firstly, our dear long-lost relatives are over there," the duchess pointed
out. "Truce or not, if they haven't got the message yet, you could show your
nose over there and get it chopped off. And secondly . . ."
"Ah, yes. Secondly."
"You know what I'm going to say," the duchess said quietly. "So please don't
shoot the messenger."
"Okay." Helge turned her head to stare moodily out of the nearest window.
"You're going to tell me that the political situation is messy. That if I go
over there right now some of the more jumpy first citizens of the Clan will
get the idea that I'm abandoning the sinking ship, aided and abetted by my
delightful grandmother's whispering campaign-"
"Leave the rudeness to me. She's my cross to bear."