"Sheri S. Tepper - After Long Silence" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tepper Sherri)

home in time for supper.

"How did your boysies do?" Celcy said, patting his face and reaching up to be kissed. "Were they in
frightfully good voice?"
"All but one, yes." He didn't really want to talk about James. Or, for some reason, Clarin.

"Oh, poor poopsie, did he get popped off?"

"Celcy, that's not funny. And it's in damn poor taste." He snapped at her, regretting it instantly.

Her good spirits were undampened, however. "I'm sorry, Tasmin. Really. I just wasn't thinking. Of
course, he didn't get popped off with you there. That's what you're there for, isn't it? To keep the boysies
safe and sound."

"Among other things."

"I missed you. I missed you a lot." She opened his robe and came inside it, against him, pummeling his
ribs with her fists. "Did you hear me, did you?"

"I heard you." He laughed, suddenly joyous. "I heard you, Celcy."

"So. Do something about it."

His weariness left him. The aftertrip letdown was postponed. She was as giddy and playful as a happy
child, eager to please him, and the evening passed in a tangle of lovemaking and feasting.

"I have been cooking dinner all day," she announced at one point, pouring him a third glass of wine. "All
day long, without surcease!"

He rubbed his stomach ruefully. If he hadn't married Celcy for quite other reasons, he might have
married her for her cooking. "You're very good to me."

"That's because," she said, running her hands under his shin. "Because."

There was an interlude.

And then, sleepily, "Tassy, sweetie,he called."

"Who?" He could not for the moment imagine whom she might be talking about, and then it came to him
with a blow of almost physical force. "Lim? He's here?" He had to be on Deepsoil Five or he couldn't
have called.

"He's up at the power station. They're camping there for a day or two to get some equipment fixed, he
said. Then they'll come on into town. He talked to me for the longest time, and he's the sweetest man!
Tassie, you never told me how wonderful he really is. He wanted to know all about you and me and how
we met and everything."

There was a cold, hard lump at the base of Tasmin's throat. He tried to swallow it away, but it wouldn't
go.