"Sarah Zettel - Playing God" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zettel Sarah)

"What's that?" Praeis Shin t'Theria straightened up and twitched one sail-like ear.

Lynn Nussbaumer looked up at the tall Dedelphi, craning her neck as far as the helmet on her
clean-suit permitted. Lynn, Praeis, and Praeis's two daughters, Resaime and Theiareth, were clustered
around a worktable in Praeis's airy office at the Crater Town Planning Hall. Now, all three Dedelphi
turned their ears toward the bank of opaqued windows set into the curving, white-plaster wall.

Lynn strained her own ears. A moment later, she heard a low, rumbling throb penetrating the
windows, despite the sound filters.

"I've got no idea what that is." Lynn got to her feet. The rumble increased. "Room voice, open
the windows."

"Opening," replied the building's genderless voice. The silvered windows cleared to reveal a
street paved with every shade of red that Martian stone and sand offered. The sudden flood of daylight
glinted off Lynn's helmet and the layer of transparent organic that covered her from neck to boots under
her functional blouse and trousers.

Normally, the street outside the Planning Hall held three or four knots of Dedelphi pedestrians
and a transport or two. Now, it was crammed with Dedelphi of every age and shade. The rumble
pressing through the window glass was the sound of their collective voices, shouting, cheering, arguing,
and weeping.

"Ancestors Mine," murmured Praeis. "What's happened?"

"I've got no idea." Lynn felt her brow wrinkle. "Room voice--"

"I've got it up already, Lynn," said Resaime behind her.

Lynn and Praeis turned in tandem. Resaime had the wall screen lit up. She and Theia stood hand
in hand in front of it, attention riveted on its scene. Lynn stepped around Theia to get a better view.
Praeis just stared between the tips of her daughter's ears.

The screen showed what looked like a theater. The gallery was crammed with Dedelphi: sail-like
ears, leathery skin, round, multi-lidded eyes, all watching a gathering on a proscenium stage. More
Dedelphi filled the stage, crowding around an oval table. Lynn recognized the Io Elath, the t'Therian's
Queens-of-All, in their stark, black robes. Directly across from them stood the Tvkesh-I-Rchilthen, the
Getesaph's Sisters-Chosen-to-Lead, resplendent in their silver-and-gold jackets.

Dominating the entire scene was a view screen hanging on the stage's back wall. Three soberly
dressed Humans--two men and one woman, all magnified to at least three times life size--looked down
on the crowd of Dedelphi. Behind the Humans shone the green triangle emblem of the Bioverse
Incorporated enclave.

"By the Walking Buddha," breathed Lynn. "Do you suppose they did it?" There had been rumors
on the info-web for months that Bioverse Inc. was negotiating a bioremediation deal with the entire
Dedelphi homeworld, something completely unheard of in all the Dedelphi's long, war-torn history.

As if to answer her question, the tallest of the Sisters-Chosen-to-Lead lifted her pen from off the
stiff, white treaty board. "It is done," she said in staccato Getesaph. A host of white-lettered subtitles