"Michael Swanwick - Girls and Boys, Come Out to Play" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swanwick Michael)

"You do not look Greek."

"Not the local government, sir. The British government." Darger smiled into the man's baffled expression.
"May we come in?"

They were not brought to see Dionysus immediately, of course, but to the Chief Researcher. The
scientist-monk led them to an office that was almost Spartan in its appointments: a chair, a desk, a lamp,
and nothing more. Behind the desk sat a girl who looked to be at most ten years old, reading a report by
the lamp's gentle biofluorescence. She was a scrawny thing with a large and tightly corn-rowed head.
"Tell her you love her," she said curtly.

"I beg your pardon?" Surplus said.

"Tell her that, and then kiss her. That'll work better than any aphrodisiac I could give you. I presume
that's what you came to this den of scientists forтАФthat or poison. In which case, I recommend a stout
cudgel at midnight and dumping the body in a marsh before daybreak. Poisons are notoriously uncertain.
In either case, there is no need to involve my people in your personal affairs."

Taken aback, Darger said, "Ah, actually, we are here on official husiness."

The girl raised her head.

Her eyes were as dark and motionless as a snake's. They were not the eyes of a child but more like
those of the legendary artificial intellects of the Utopian eraтАФcold, timeless, calculating. A shudder ran
through Darger's body. Her gaze was electrifying. Almost, it was terrifying.

Recovering himself, Darger said, "I am Inspector Darger, and this is my colleague, Sir Blackthorpe
Ravenscairn de Plus Precieux. By birth an American, it goes without saying."

She did not blink. "What brings two representatives of Her Majesty's government here?"

"We have been dispatched to search out and recover the Evangelos bronzes. Doubtless you know of
them."

"Vaguely. They were liberated from London, were they not?"

"Looted, rather! Wrenched from Britain's loving arms by that dastard Konstantin Evangelos in an age
when she was weak and Greece powerful, and upon the shoddiest of excusesтАФsomething about some
ancient marbles that had supposedlyтАж well, that hardly matters."

"Our mission is to find and recover them," Surplus elucidated.

"They must be valuable."

"Were you to discover them, they would be worth a king's ransom, and it would be my proud privilege
to write you a promissory note for the full amount. HoweverтАФ" Darger coughed into his hand. "We, of
course, are civil servants. The thanks of a grateful nation will be our reward."

"I see." Abruptly changing the subject, the Chief Researcher said, "Your friendтАФis he a chimeric mixture
of human and animal genes, like the satyrs? Or is he a genetically modified dog? I ask only out of