"Gene Wolfe - The Ziggurat" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

"You're not going to sleep here? Stay overnight?"
"Tonight? Certainly not. We've got to start home before this storm gets serious.
You always interrupt me. You always have. I suppose it's too late to say I wish you'd
stop."
He nodded. "I made up a bunk for you."
"Brook can have it. Now right--"
The back door opened and Brook himself came in. "I showed them how you split
the wood, and 'Layna split one. Didn't you, 'Layna?"
"Right here." Behind him, Alayna held the pieces up.
"That's not ladylike," Jan told her.
Emery said, "But it's quite something that a girl her age can swing that maul -- I
wouldn't have believed she could. Did Brook help you lift it?"
Alayna shook her head.
"I didn't want to," Aileen declared virtuously.
"Right here," Jan was pushing an envelope into his hands, "is a letter from your
attorney. It's sealed, see? I haven't read it, but you'd better take a look at it first."
"You know what's in it, though," Emery said, "or you think you do."
"He told me what he was going to write to you, yes."
"Otherwise you would have saved it." Emery got out his pocketknife and slit the
flap. "Want to tell me?"
 Jan shook her head, her lips as tight and ugly as he had imagined them earlier.
Brook put down his load of wood. "Can I see?"
"You can read it for me," Emery told him. "I've got snow on my glasses." He
found a clean handkerchief and wiped them. "Don't read it out loud. Just tell me what
it says."
"Emery, you're doing this to get even!"
He shook his head. "This is Brook's inheritance that our lawyers are arguing
about."
Brook stared.
"I've lost my company," Emery told him. "Basically, we're talking about the
money and stock I got as a consolation prize. You're the only child I've got, probably
the only one I'll ever have. So read it. What does it say?"
Brook unfolded the letter; it seemed quieter to Emery now, with all five of them in
the cabin, than it ever had during all the months he had lived there alone.
Jan said, "What they did was perfectly legal, Brook. You should understand that.
They bought up a controlling interest and merged our company with theirs. That's all
that happened."
The stiff, parchment-like paper rattled in Brook's hands. Unexpectedly Alayna
whispered, "I'm sorry, Daddy."
Emery grinned at her. "I'm still here, honey."
Brook glanced from him to Jan, then back to him. "He says -- it's Mister
Gluckman. You introduced me one time."
Emery nodded.
"He says this is the best arrangement he's been able to work out, and he thinks it
would be in your best interest to take it."
Jan said, "You keep this place and your Jeep, and all your personal belongings,
naturally. I'll give you back my wedding and engagement rings--"
"You can keep them," Emery told her.
"No, I want to be fair about this. I've always tried to be fair, even when you didn't
come to the meetings between our attorneys. I'll give them back, but I get to keep all