"Aldridge, Ray - The Spine DiversV1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Aldridge Ray)

She laughed. "Don't count on it. Yes, all right, I'll do it. Odorini will be grateful."

She sat motionless in the high-backed chair while I worked the leads up under her soft black hair. She didn't wince when the tip patches bit into her scalp. The transmitter, a capsule no larger than a grain of rice, lay just above the nape of her neck, well-concealed.

When I was finished, I waited for her to return to the bed, but she pushed me away and pointed to it. "You rest there for a while. It annoys me to have you always arranging your camera so as to peek up my breechcloth."

I made a feeble protest; she waved it away. "Never mind. Ask your questions."

I glanced at my forearm monitor; the framing was less felicitous now. Sprawled on the bed, I seemed vulnerable and awkward, without any of the grace she had displayed in the same position. She sat in the chair, leaning forward. The overhead light cast harsh shadows over her face, made her body seem too knotty with muscle. She had an almost brutal quality, which from all I knew of her was a falseness. "Lean back a little," I said, and she did, softening the shadows.

I adjusted the camera so that my head and shoulder bounded the image on two sides. I drew a deep breath and switched over into her viewpoint.

I felt first a singing tension, almost sexual, and indeed lust was a component, but it was only coincidentally directed at me, and tempered by a vague expectation of disappointment. In that instant I saw that if I were to ask her to join me on the bed, she would do so. . .but without any special enthusiasm.

My pride stung, I switched out, and tried to control my expression. Apparently I was unsuccessful.

"Sorry," she said, and shrugged. "It's me, not you. My mind is on other matters."

"Doesn't matter," I muttered. "We'll talk of those other things."

"All right." She had remarkable poise for one so young.

"Why did you choose to become a diver?" I asked.

She smiled almost eagerly, and it came to me that she was happy to have an audience. "What could be better? No, I'm serious. Who bums as bright as the person who bums in the dark?"

I held back a laugh. "That has the sound of rhetoric, learned for occasions like this."

"You can think so. But there are far more dramatic divers than Mirella. You'd hear grander rhetoric from them."

"For example?"

"'We are white-hot forges, burning away life, while Death pumps the bellows.'" She made a sour face.

"Pretty purple stuff. Who said that?"

"Roont, my usual lover. Actually that's one of his better lines."

"You're fortunate," I said, somewhat stiffly.

"Do you think so?" Her mouth quirked into a somewhat sardonic shape. I hastened to change the subject. "How long have you been a diver?"

"For almost three years."

"And how long do you plan to continue?"

She shrugged. "Until I die." She seemed matter-of-fact, without any of the bravado that usually accompanies such statements.

"When do you expect that to be?"