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

attractive and just as good a dancer as Dorst was.

Midshipman Vesey, also of theSissie and Dorst's lover, watched from the edge of the dance floor with a
careful lack of expression. Daniel regarded Vesey as a very respectable astrogator. That was high praise,
as it came from a man whom the RCN held the near equal of the incomparable Stacey Bergen, Daniel's
uncle and the man who'd trained him in everything to do with a starship. Vesey was even attractive . . .
but not the way the redhead was attractive.

As best Adele could tell, Dorst loved Vesey; certainly he'd willingly put his tall, muscular body between
her and any danger. But tonight was likely to be a difficult time for Vesey, who seemed completely
oblivious of the bevy of civilian nobles trying to catch her attention.

Adele sighed. She herself had no more interest in sex than the busts on either side of the marble
mantelpiece did. There were others—Daniel Leary was a member of the class—who had an obvious
animal enthusiasm for the business but then got on with the rest of their lives, utterly unscathed by those
activities.

And then there were the Midshipman Veseys and apparently the majority of humanity, who were
regularly turned inside out by what could've been a matter of simple biology. Adele's philosophy hadn't
had room for a deity even before the slaughter of her family, but it sometimes seemed to her that the
whole business was too illogical not to have been Something's cruel joke.

"Mistress Mundy . . . ?"

"I'mvery sorry," Adele said, curtseying to Kearnes in honest contrition. "I'm afraid I'm distracted by
the—"

She didn't know how to go on. Not with what she was really thinking, not to this woman who'd no more
understand than if Adele began chattering in the language of a just-discovered planet which'd fallen into
savagery at the Hiatus and never recovered.

"We don't have much occasion for events like this," Adele continued in a flash of inspiration. It wasn't
exactly a lie. Notexactly . She made a gesture of cultured restraint to the glittering crowd. "I haven't seen
anything to equal it since, that is, in a very long time."

Since my family was massacred; but that was another thing not to say here.

"Would you like to go . . ." Kearnes began. She caught herself and amended her words to, "Would you
mind stepping into a drawing room with me, Mistress Mundy? I know it's my party and I shouldn't, but I
really do want to talk with you. It's about my son, you see."

Adele went blank-faced.Her son?
 "Yes, of course," she said aloud, meaning the private discussion rather than that she had any idea of what
Lira Kearnes was talking about. It took conscious restraint to prevent Adele from pulling out her
personal data unit and squatting on the floor to check the Kearnes family in a detail greater than what
she'd thought necessary on receiving the invitation. It was always a mistake not to search deeply when
you had the time!

Adele wore a double tunic and skirt. The translucent outer fabric was a misty gray which slightly blurred
the geometric patterns embroidered in black on her inner garments. The data unit in a pocket on the inner