"Debra Doyle & James MacDonald - Mageworlds 01 - The Price of the Stars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doyle Debra)

Beka exhaled slowly through clenched teeth. It wasn’t the bartender’s fault that random genetic
factors had made her into a taller, thinner, plainer version of the civilized galaxy’s most famous
stateswoman. But what anybody could think Mother was doing in a place like this-or maybe they
haven’t forgotten that she did come to Waycross once, when she needed the kind of help that no
other place could give.

She drew a long breath. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not the Domina. I’m not even a gentle
lady. I’m a thirsty starpilot, and I’d like some brew.”

The bartender gave her another strange look, then shrugged and turned away. He drew a mug of
beer from the console behind the bar and slid the mug across the counter without speaking. Beka
reached out to pick it up, but before her fingers reached the frosted glass she felt a touch on her shoulder.

She whirled, dropping her hand to the grip of the blaster. Then she saw who stood there-a slight,
dark-haired man in dusty black, a plain wooden staff slung across his back on a leather thong. Her blue
eyes widened with recognition, and she let her hand relax.

“Master Ransome,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you,” the man answered. “You’re wanted down at the docking bays.”

Beka raised an eyebrow. “Somehow I can’t see the Master of the Adepts’ Guild running errands
for the likes of Captain Osa.”

“I’m not,” Ransome said. “Your father is here.”

So you’re running errands for Dadda instead . . . which means Mother has to be mixed up
in this somehow. Beka felt the old, familiar anger stir to life at the thought. Seven years. It’s been seven
years, and she still thinks I’m going to change my mind and come home. Or maybe Master
Ransome is supposed to drag me back to Galcen whether I want to go or not.

She gave the Adept a wary look. “I thought the Space Force stayed away from Innish-Kyl.”

“The Space Force has nothing to do with it. Warhammer is in docking bay sixty-two-D.”

Beka took a long, deep drink from her mug. So her father had finally brought his old ship back to
the port that had made her famous. After all the times I asked him to take me to Waycross, back
when I was a kid, and he said no, he didn’t want to see the place again . . . and now he’s here.

She set down the beer and pushed herself away from the bar. “All right,” she said. “I can take a
hint. Let’s go.”

She followed the Adept through the crowded room and out onto the street. The rest of the Blue
Sun’s customers drew aside to let them pass-not out of any regard for her, she knew, but out of
well-founded respect for anyone who carried an Adept’s staff.

For centuries the galaxy’s Adepts had kept to themselves, living apart from those who distrusted
their power to sense and manipulate the patterns of the universe. Then strange, wing-shaped scoutships
began appearing above the outplanets. A few years later the raiding parties followed, first on the frontier