"David Drake - The Way to Glory" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

skirt was hidden from view but instantly accessible. Through the unit's controlling wands—less bulky than
a keypad—Adele had access to the wider universe in the only form she could really accept it: as
tabulated information.

But it would be impolite to bring out the flat rectangle now, and Adele had already come uncomfortably
close to being impolite to Lira Kearnes. Besides, there was a better—if not as natural to Adele—way to
learn what the lady was talking about: she could ask.

"I'm not aware of having met your son, mistress," Adele said as footmen in violet frock coats swept open
an unobtrusive door and closed it behind them. The drawing room beyond was tiled in patterns of circles,
whorls, and multi-pointed stars. Instead of ordinary light fixtures, a screen brightened into the holographic
image of an arched double window looking out onto a palm-fringed beach. Beyond, the sea combed
over sand toward the window.

"Do sit, please," Kearnes said. There were chairs and a table, but she gestured instead to the ottoman
beneath the "window."

Adele seated herself carefully, folding her hands in her lap. The tips of her fingers rested on the hard,
hidden outlines of her data unit.

Kearnes sat on the other end of the ottoman and stared at the upholstery between them for a moment.
When she looked up, she began, "It's my third son, Oller. He's joined the navy, you see. I didn't want
him to go, but . . . Oller's a very high-spirited boy, extremely bright but, well, he has his own ideas. He'd
signed on with a privateer, and it was only because my husband agreed to get him a special appointment
as a midshipman that Oller gave up that plan."

"The RCN can be a fine career for a high-spirited youth, mistress," Adele said, choosing her words
carefully. "It has been for my friend Lieutenant Leary, certainly."

But Danielwas high spirited. Reading between the lines of a mother's description, Oller Kearnes was a
spoiled brat with romantic notions of what it meant to be one of scores or hundreds of people sealed in a
metal box so full of equipment that even to turn around required caution.

Danger is another thing that's more romantic to read about than the reality of blood and burns and the
screams transcending age and gender and even humanity. Pain can be a sound, pure sound, and pictures
can't prepare you for the smell of a man trying to stuff his intestines back into his ripped abdomen.

"Yes, I know that," Lira Kearnes said. "That's why I wanted to talk with you, one of the reasons. I don't
suppose you're a mother . . . ?"

And despite the wording, Kearnes obviously hoped Adele would say, "Yes."

"No," Adele said primly. "I am not."
 "Ah," Kearnes said. "Well, I was sure you weren't. I couldn't talk to Lieutenant Leary directly. He, ah,
his father was an associate of my husband's at one time, but they had a falling out. I thought you might be
able to tell me what life's like for a midshipman on shipboard. And, well . . ."

She reached out impulsively and touched her fingertips to the back of Adele's right hand. "It helps that
you're a woman," she blurted.