"Joan D. Vinge - Snow Queen 1 - Snow Queen" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vinge Joan D)

blood and the pain."

Afraid to respond, he only moved past her, crossed the carpet to
the couch and put his instrument kit on the floor. Beyond these walls
the city of Carbuncle climaxed its celebration of the Prime
Minister's cyclical visit to this world with a night of joyous
abandon. He had never expected to find himself spending it with this
world's queen and certainly not spending it doing what he was about
to do.

The sleeping woman lay with her face toward him. He saw dtiat she
was young, of medium height, strong and healthy. Her gently smiling
face was deeply tanned by sun and weather beneath the tangled, sandy
hair. The rest of her body was pale; he supposed she kept it well
protected from the bitter cold beyond the city's walls. The man
beside her was a youthful thirty, he judged, with dark hair and light
skin, and could have been either a local or an off worlder but he was
of no concern now. Their Festival masks looked down in hollow-eyed
censure, like impotent guardian gods resting on the couch back. He
dabbed the woman's shoulder with antiseptic, made the tiny incision
to insert the tracer beneath her skin, doing the simple procedure
first to reassure himself. The Queen stood watching intently, silent
now that he needed silence.

Noise concentrated beyond the locked door; he heard slightly
slurred voices protesting loudly. He shrank like an animal in a trap,
waiting for discovery.

"Don't worry, Doctor." The Queen laid a light, reassuring hand on
his arm. "My people will see that we're not disturbed."

"Why the hell did I let myself be talked into this?" more to
himself than to her. He turned back to his work, but his hands were
unsteady.

"Twenty-five extra years of youth can be very persuasive."

"A lot of good it'll do me if I spend them all in some penal
colony!"

"Get hold of yourself, Doctor. If you don't finish what you've
started tonight, you won't have earned your twenty-five years anyway.
The agreement stands only while I have at least one perfectly normal
clone-child somewhere among the Summer folk on this planet."

"I'm aware of the terms." He finished with the small incision and
sealed it. "But I hope you understand that a clone implant under
these circumstances is not only illegal, it's highly unpredictable.
This is a difficult procedure. The odds of producing a clone who is
even a reasonable replica of the original person are not particularly