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

spanked me for it-but I heard her laughing about it later. She didn’t really like Tarveet any more
than I did . . . .

Her eyes stung; she blinked once, hard, and kept her eyes on Master Ransome.

“The Visitors’ Gallery was crowded that day. It always was, whenever your mother spoke.”
Master Ransome smiled briefly. “Even your father was there.”

Which meant, Beka knew, that the debate would have been more than usually important-her
father had no use for politics, as a rule. “It makes no difference to me what they decide,” she’d heard him
say once. “All it ever means is more work for the Space Force.” Then he’d laughed, and smiled at her
mother. “You shouldn’t make so many speeches. It only encourages them.”

She didn’t dare look at her father now. Watching Master Ransome’s face was bad enough. It
made her wonder if the old portside story was true-that when Domina Perada Rosselin of Entibor came
to Waycross in search of a new commander for the Republic’s shattered spacefleet, she’d taken away
the hearts of Warhammer’s captain and copilot both.

“Somehow,” said Master Ransome, “the force field in the Visitor’s Gallery went down. And
there was an assassin. With a blaster. He got off one shot. Your father shot him before he could fire
again.”

Beka swallowed, and wet her lips. When she spoke, her voice sounded old and rusty. “That was
how it happened?”

“Not quite,” said the Adept. “Unlike your father, the assassin missed his target. All his shot hit
was the floor of the Council Hall. But one of the flying shards of marble from the floor struck your
mother. It was just a scratch, barely enough to justify visiting the Council’s medics. But she went . . . and
somebody had given them Clyndagyt instead of their usual variety of antiseptic spray.”

“I don’t understand,” Beka said. “There’s nothing wrong with Clyndagyt. It’s what we’ve got on
Claw Hard.”

Her father spoke again, for the first time in what felt to Beka like hours. “Clyndagyt works just
fine, as long as nothing’s managed to sensitize you to it. And that’s hard to do-about the only way to get
sensitized was in one of the Mageworlders’ biochemical attacks. But almost everybody who was at the
Siege of Entibor lived through a couple of those-and your mother wouldn’t leave until the Magelords had
just about wiped the whole planet slick. She had some kind of damn-fool notion about staying there and
making them kill her in person.”

Beka bit her lip. “She never told me that.”

“It makes a lousy bedtime story,” said her father. “And anyway, I talked her out of it. Now let’s
get down to business.”

So it comes around to family politics, after all, Beka thought. She clenched her fists again
under the table.

“No,” she said. “I’ll say to you what I said to Mother seven years ago. I don’t give a damn about
duty and family and all that. I’m not going back to Galcen and letting myself get made over into the next