"Anderson, Poul - 1974 Flandry 11 - A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows (Knight Fl" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anderson Poul)

Summer evening around Catalina deepened into night. Flandry sat on a
terrace of the lodge which the island's owner, his friend the Mayor
Palatine of Britain, had built on its heights and had lent to him. He
wasn't sleepy; during the space trip, his circadian rhythm had slipped
out of phase with this area. Nor was he energetic. He felt--a bit
sad?--no, pensive, lonesome, less in an immediate fashion than as an
accumulation from the years--a mood he had often felt before and
recognized would soon become restlessness. Yet while it stayed as it
was, he could wonder if he should have married now and then. Or even for
life? It would have been good to help young Dominic grow.

He sighed, twisted about in his lounger till he found a comfortable
knees-aloft position, drew on his cigar and watched the view. Beneath
him, shadowy land plunged to a bay and, beyond, the vast metallic sheet
of a calm Pacific. A breeze blew cool, scented with roses and Buddha's
cup. Overhead, stars twinkled forth in a sky that ranged from amethyst
to silver-blue. A pair of contrails in the west caught the last glow of
a sunken sun. But the evening was quiet. Traffic was never routed near
the retreats of noblemen.

How many kids do I have? And how many of them know they're mine? (I've
only met or heard of a few.) And where are they and what's the universe
doing to them?

Hm. He pulled rich smoke across his tongue. When a person starts
sentimentalizing, it's time either to get busy or to take antisenescence
treatments. Pending this decision, how about a woman? That stopover on
Ceres was several days ago, after all. He considered ladies he knew and
decided against them, for each would expect personal
consideration--which was her right, but his mind was still too full of
his son. Therefore: Would I rather flit to the mainland and its bright
lights, or have Chives phone the nearest cepheid agency?

As if at a signal, his personal servant appeared, a Shalmuan, slim
kilt-clad form remarkably humanlike except for 140 centimeters of
height, green skin, hairlessness, long prehensile tail, and, to be sure,
countless more subtle variations. On a tray he carried a visicom
extension, a cup of coffee, and a snifter of cognac. "You have a call,
sir," he announced.

How many have you filtered out? Flandry didn't ask. Nor did he object.
The nonhuman in a human milieu--or vice versa--commonly appears as a
caricature of a personality, because those around him cannot see most of
his soul. But Chives had attended his boss for years. "Personal servant"
had come to mean more than "valet and cook"; it included being butler of
a household which never stayed long in a single place, and pilot, and
bodyguard, and whatever an emergency might require.

Chives brought the lounger table into position, set down the tray, and
disappeared again. Flandry's pulse bounced a little. In the screen