"Jacquelyn Hooper - Home On The Range" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hooper Jacquelyn)

"What for?"

"You never wondered what happens to the gods when they die?"

"They ain't gods." He tightened the coat around him "Anyway, who gives a damn?
Picture's not gonna bring 'em back."

She lifted a strand of her hair from her face. "What's wrong with you?"

"Paladin." He kicked at the ground. "I'm sorry."

"So make it up to me." She brushed her camera free of water with her fingers.
"How's your memory?"

"Too good."

"I want an image. Talk me through a drawing on the radio later, okay?"

"Rae!" It was Paladin. "Fix this box so we can get the hell out of here."

She looked at Chris. He smiled, and leaned against the nearest tree. He and Rae
were raised in the same orphanage in New Bethlehem, seven hundred kilometers
east and six years away from the wilds of the New river Territory.

Before Paladin had bought Chris, then sixteen, from New Bethlehem, Rae was his
girl. running into her on this assignment, it had almost been as if they'd never
been parted.

Or it would be, if they were ever allowed more than five seconds together.
Stares and a few words were all Paladin would allow them.

"Rae!" Paladin yelled.

"Kleenex," she said, and turned around.

"What?" Chris asked.

"In the top pocket." Rae stomped toward the cycles. "Your nose is running."

"Circuit board malfunction," Rae said an hour later. She tightened the lid of
the atmostat. "Like they had back at W Station. Native comes in, sticks a magnet
under the box. Erases the program, shuts the shields down." She picked up her
radio. "Sayles at x-ray station, code zero two zero two charlie. Activate."
The red light turned green. Moments later, the clearing was filled with the
sound of crickets and cicadas, New River's way of verifying that the equipment
was on, while maintaining an Earthlike feel.

Or it would be, Chris thought. If Cynataka had crickets and cicadas.