"Tepper, Sheri S - A Plague Of Angels - plangel2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tepper Sherri)

Sheri S. Tepper

How had Bossik gotten to know this one? A.nd how did one respond to such an introduction'?
She was spared the necessity of deciding when the man went on:
"Whenever 1 see Bossik, he tells me something new and wonderful about you. He says you make the best venison stew in the world."
Bossik Finch had indeed told him this, though it had taken a good deal of time and maneuver to get him to do so.
Unaware of all this effort, Qualary flushed. "Oh, well," she murmured. "You can't believe everything Bossy says."
"On the contrary." The stranger beamed. "He said you were the prettiest woman in the Place, and I'm inclined to agree with him." This was a lie, but not unwelcome.
Her mouth dropped open as she considered what one might say to this. Pretty? She? He must be joking!
He gave her no time for rebuttal. "My name's Tom Fuelry. No laughter, please. Ma was a jokester, and it really is my name. Are you on your way out to market? Me too. I'll walk with you."
And she found herself walking, talking about nothing much, all at a loss what to say or do about this assault upon her daily routine. They went through the gates, which allowed free egress on market days--though no one could come back inside without a the proper permanent identification--and once outside strolled through the chatter and tumult of the market itself, full of hawkers and merchants and peddlers and traders, in addition to the local farmers with their produce and grains and meats.
Under Fuelry's watchful eye, Qualary bought a rat's worth of sausage, a few mice worth of fresh vegetables, several packets of seeds, two potted flowering plants, a small bird in a cage, a jar of honey, a sack of crushed grain that she planned to cook with meat and raisins--so she said--and a freshly killed chicken. To Fuelry's astonishment, she asked if anyone had live little fish for sale and was distressed that no one had. Meanwhile, Tom Fuelry bought venison chops, potatoes, late sweet corn, and two bottles of wine transported all the way from the shores of the Faulty Sea.
Both of them summoned Domer tote-boys to carry their baskets and strolled back to the walls together, where they waited in line with their tote-boys to be approved by the sensors.
When they were safely inside, Fuelry said:
"You don't know me at all, but your brother does. If you consult him and he recommends me, and if you'd like to do so, would you join me for dinner in my quarters tonight? I can't drink all that wine alone. It would be a sin to try."
Without quite knowing how it happened, she found herself agreeing. On her return to her own placid and lonely house, she didn't even call


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Bossik to ask him about his friend. She told herself it wasn't necessary. In fact, she would have been embarrassed to do so, for Bossy would tease her as he always had when they were children, and she didn't think she could bear it. It wasn't anything she'd ordinarily do---have dinner with a Gaddir (she no more than any Domer making the distinction between Old Seoca and those who served him)--but since he was a friend of her brother's...
All this consideration was to no point. Had she tried to reach her brother she would have found him gone. Fuelry had made quite sure that Bossik Finch would be elsewhere when he approached Qualary.
She went to the Gaddi House gate at sundown, where Fuelry waited to escort her through the checkpoints to a labyrinth of halls and rooms and stairs and lifts inside.
"I've never been in here before," she whispered. "None of us Domers have. I thought it would be... strange."
"Nothing strange about it," he said offhandedly. "Just a big apartment house for people to live in."
Elsewhere and below in Gaddi House, there were indeed strange places, some of which Tom shuddered to go into and most of which he had never even seen. He knew of them only because the old man had spoken of them as he spoke of many marvels in the place. Sometimes Tom thought the old man merely imagined what was behind certain huge doors or down certain winding corridors. Imaginary or not, Tom didn't mention them to Qualary. Tom was one of half a dozen people the old man talked to, but none of the half-dozen ever talked about what he said, not even to one another.
Tom's own quarters were roomy and pleasant, facing on a sizable balcony that extended over an interior courtyard.
"You have windows," she cried. "I didn't know Gaddi House had windows."
"Oh, yes," he remarked. "All the living quarters are built around these atriums. It's really quite comfortable. Different from the separate houses most of you Domers live in, and I must say I envy you your gardens."
She agreed that the gardens were enjoyable and went into some detail about her own small house, her own small garden.
"I often think it would be nice if we could visit back and forth more," asserted Fuelry. "Domers and Gaddirs seem to be getting more and more isolated all the time. We share the Place, we ought to be friendlief."
She hadn't thought about it. She did so now, trying to do so honestly. "There are fundamental differences in philosophy," she said seriously. "Ander says there are variations in the essentialities of our experience. Dissonant intellectual matrices."


116 Sheri S. Tepper

Fuelry gave her a long, level look, and she blushed again, wondering if he had understood her. Wondering if she had understood herself. She knew she had used the right words, and she thought she knew what she meant. Of course, the differences were philosophical, and Domers said Gaddirs couldn't understand philosophy. Gaddirs were unregenerate pragmatists. They cared only for what worked. They served no higher purpose. The Domers, on the other hand, cared for eternal verities. World order. A united mankind. A civilization of philosophers.
Fuelry, who thought it interesting that she quoted Ander rather than Ellel, made no attempt to dig into what other things Ander might have said. Instead, he turned the conversation to gardening, a comfortably pragmatic subject that the Founders were not greatly interested in and had therefore never bothered to invent a jargon for. He chatted, and filled her glass, and asked a few questions as though the answers didn't matter, and when the wine had been drunk and the food eaten, he helped her into her jacket and escorted her to the gate, where he planted a chaste kiss upon her cheek and let her go back to her quarters, totally unscathed and thereby reassured.
Reassuring her had been his intent. Qualary Finch was shy, diffident, defensive. She had every right to be. He thought he had a notion why she had wanted the fish, why she had bought the little bird. She had not told him specifically, but she had described Ellel's apartment, speaking of the caged birds, the bright fishes, and her hands had gone to her shoulders, like a child protecting a hurt place. Fuelry could put two and two together as well as the next man. Particularly inasmuch as he'd received substantiating information about Quince Ellel from a number of other sources.
Qualary was a Domer only because she'd been born one. She had no reason to be loyal, but she had good reason to be discreet. She would have to know Tom Fuelry a good bit better before she would come right out and tell him what Quince Ellel was up to. If she knew.

In the time of the current Ander's youth, a number of the older clan members, including Ander's parents, had built themselves a family rdtreat in a forested area near the back wall of the Place of Power. It was a fanciful pavilion, much gilded and ornamented with carved dragons. Craftsmen had been brought all the way from the Faulty Sea to do the work, and craftsmen were still summoned at intervals to repair the lacquer or regild the finials of the roof peaks, architectural conceits that did not stand up well to those violent changes in temperature and humidity that the locals called climate.
The pavilion was exclusively an Ander hideaway. Family members were


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so excessively refined that prolonged contact with persons from other clans inevitably sent them retreating to the sound of tinkling waters, the feel of silk robes loosely belted, the sight of blossoms artfully arrayed, and the smell and taste of fine foods, elaborately prepared. All Ander servants were well schooled in artfulness and elaboration. The pavilion servants were especially so. The simple handing of a dish could take up to five minutes and require full orchestral accompaniment. Such lengthy conceits embodying mime, music, and ballet were encouraged. There was no hurry in the pa~'ition. There were never any voices raised there. No business was ever discussed. In the entire history of the structure, this latter rule had not been broken until now. The fact that it was being broken now, and by general consent, conveyed more than a little of the importance the Anders attached to Quince Ellel's imminent flight to the moon.
Ander's uncle, one Forsmooth Ander, stood at the center of the gathering, pivoting gracefully and extending his arms to display his sleeves. The sleeves were pure silk, spun in the boat-towns of the Faulty Sea. Their elegant pattern of pine cones and siskins had been printed by a dyer near Whitherby in manland, one Wilfer Ponde.
"We all know what she's like," Forsmooth said for perhaps the fifth time. "Every person in the Place knows what she's like. If she thought the air in Berkli's lungs carried a scent she needed, she'd put a clothespeg on his nose and suck his breath. She's not going to let him sidetrack her, not him nor Mitty. Quince Ellel is going to take power. She may think we haven't noticed, but she's already taken over for all intents and purposes."