"John G. Hemry - Kyrie Eleison" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hemry John G)

until they reached a place where a cave mouth in a hill had been covered with roughly
hewn stone. The door, formed of small boards hacked from the local vegetation,
didn’t fit its frame tightly, but was better than nothing at keeping out the weather. A
moment later they were within the meeting hall, out of the bitter wind and seeking
seats on the rough benches.

****

The room filled rapidly. Francesa ignored the smells of so many bodies,
instead enjoying the warmth the crowd generated. Talking began almost at once, but
after a while Francesa realized the conversations around her were going nowhere.
What, really, was there to say? The judgment had come and here they sat downcast,
while the Officers and Crew were doubtless dancing in the halls of the buildings
around the Bridge.

Some length of time had certainly passed, for the gaps around the door
showed nothing but darkness, when the aimless conversations ceased abruptly as the
door opened and a woman stepped inside. Francesa watched her like the rest, able
to tell even under the rough worker’s cloak that she was too well fed to actually be a
worker. Then the woman raised her head to return the stares and Francesa felt a
shock of recognition. “The man Kayl’s companion,” she gasped.

Others had obviously identified the woman as well. A roar of talk arose, then
faded into silence once more as the woman stepped away from the door. Francesa’s
father stood and walked forward to meet her, his nervousness plain to all. “You are,
of course, welcome here.”

The woman halted and eyed the roomful of workers. “Thank you. It wasn’t
too hard to manufacture a copy of your cloaks, though I see that didn’t mislead
anyone.”

“The Watch is not here with you?” someone asked nervously.

“The Watch,” the woman answered dryly, “doesn’t know I walked through
their ranks. My stealth gear isn’t state of the art, but it’s more than good enough for
dealing with them.” She eyed the group. “I wanted to talk to someone else. Someone
besides that group that kept everyone else away after we landed. You seem
frightened. Why?” To Francesa, the woman’s voice held the same assumption of
obedience that she’d always heard in First Officer Garvis, yet without the arrogance
Garvis always carried around him like a second cloak.

Francesa’s father looked around helplessly, saw that no one else wanted to
answer, then spoke heavily. “We know you’re here to judge. I suppose you’ve
already judged. And every one of us knows we’re not worthy.”

The woman from the ship cocked one questioning eyebrow at him. “You’re
not?”

“Please do not mock us. We are here, we are workers, because we lacked the
same wholehearted obedience to the Captain that the Officers and Crew claim. We