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

She shook her head and looked away. "Odorini thinks I'll die tomorrow. Because of my recent injuries."

"Do you agree?"

"No. I still have reserves. I'll last a while longer. I may not kill so frequently as I did in times past." She looked a bit ashamed, but determined.

I wished I hadn't asked. Looking at her, separate from all the gaudy self-memorializing ritual of the caverns, I felt my detachment melting away, I felt some of the weight of Odorini's sorrow.

"Your father. . .I think he'll find it hard to live when you're gone."

"Now who's being dramatic?" she asked. "Odorini will survive. You have no idea what he's already lived through. He's very old."

"Has he always been a restaurateur?" I asked, thinking to find a less distressing subject.

"Oh, no," she said. She giggled, as if this were a completely ludicrous idea. "He was a great magnate on Firenza, before he moved here. He's still insanely wealthy; he could buy this whole planet on a whim."

Firenza? A strange thought came to me. My new publisher was chartered out of Firenza. Was there a connection?

She went on; apparently she hadn't noticed the sound of gears grinding in my head. "It's to his credit, really, that he doesn't just have me taken up and carried off to the nearest soul laundry for a new personality."

"Yes, I suppose so. . . ." I muttered, still bemused.

"He's sentimental," she said. "And not attached to physical objects; with a new personality the old Mirella would be as dead to him as if a ripper had cut her into fishbait. Even if she looked the same."

"Oh," I said. I tried to put aside my suspicions. Would Mirella know anything about her father's schemes? If she did, would she tell me? Pointless to wonder. "Well then, tell me about the drug."

"What's to tell? They make it from the fish and sell it for enough money to make life easy." She wore a look of mild distaste.

"Do you use the drug when you dive?"

She jumped up, her distaste flashing into anger. "What a dreadful idea," she said, walking back and forth, looking as if she might bolt out the door at any moment.

"I'm sorry," I said. "Maybe I was misinformed. I thought that many of the divers used the drug."

Her eyes flashed, her nostrils flared, and her lips drew back over strong white teeth. "Have you seen Loomp's collection of elderly divers? Those are the users. One day they grew too fearful to swim the tide, and took the drug. They never kill again. They never feel the glory again, only the shame. But since they don't fear the shame, they keep on diving and not killing, until at last the tide wizards take away their right to dive. Then they move offplanet, or become mercenaries or tour guides. Finally they sit on Loomp's porch, without fear."

"I really don't understand. . . ." I said.

"Clearly!" But she was calming a little; my bewilderment must have seemed genuine. "The fear is necessary; it drives out rational thought; without that freeing fear, who would try to kill a ripper? Only a mad person. . .and the mad divers rarely live long enough to acquire skill."

"I suppose I see what you mean, a little," I said.

She looked at me, her eyes still fierce. "My father was right; you're an innocent. I know you're afraid. Tell me: have you ever taken the drug?"

"No."

She smiled and pulled away her breechcloth. She knelt over me, beautiful and naked, frightening and strange. "Then I'll give you what I can, if you still want it."

In the hours that followed, I was always aware that the recorders were running, my greedy pleasure somehow increased by the thought that I would never forget the sensations of that night -- that I would always be able to recall it with all the intensity that the memory deserved. When finally a glowing exhaustion came over me, I fell asleep without a care, pressed against her.