"Timothy Zahn - Spinneret" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zahn Timothy)

about."

Perez's first surprise was that someone was coming in so soon after the colonel's
party had left; his second surprise was that the visitor bothered to knock. Prying
his eyelids up against his fatigue, he watched the woman close the door behind her
and stand with her back to it. For a moment there was silence as they eyed each
other. "How do you feel?" she said at last.

"Tired, mainly," he answered, wondering idly about her background. From looks
alone she could be fresh from Guadalajara, but her speech was definitely middle-
class American. Second generation, perhaps, whose parents had become
respectable before the flood of illegal refugees from the 2011 Mexican collapse
had made "Hispanic" a curse-word again? "Most of the pain's gone."

She nodded. "Good. UhтАФmy name's Carmen Olivero."

"Honored. Meredith send you in to wring a confession from me?"

Some of her nervousness seemed to vanish, to be replaced by coolness. "Hardly.
The colonel has gone with Major Dunlop to get the charges against you dropped.
He asked me to find out what your complaints areтАФassuming you want them
addressed, that is, and aren't just using them as an excuse to riot."

"We weren't rioting!" he snapped, the outburst intensifying the pain behind his
eyeballs. "We wanted to complain about the lousy conditions in Ceres and the
damn soldiers fired on us." He stopped abruptly as she took a half step backward,

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Zahn, Timothy - Spinneret


her hand reaching for the door knob. Good job, Perez, he berated himself silently.
You wanted a sympathetic ear, and now you're trying to bite it off. "You say he's
dropping the charges?" he asked in a more reasonable tone.

She regarded him uncertainly, her hand on the knob. "That's what he said."

"Very kind of him." Moved by an obscure feeling, Perez forced himself to a more
dignified sitting position, sliding back so that he could lean against the wall. "I'm
sorry I blew up a minute ago. I've never been wild about pain." He waved to the
desk chair. "Please sit down?"

She hesitated only a second before stepping to the chair and sinking a bit
tentatively into it. "So тАж what is it you don't like about this place?"

He snorted. "The list would fill a disk," he said. "As far as I'm concerned it would
have made more sense to colonize the South Sahara. I've never understood why
the UN wanted to pour so much money and effort into Astra in the first place."

"If you felt like that, why did you sign up?"