"Nancy Kress - And Wild for to Hold" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kress Nancy)

Everyone in the room looked pious. Lambert hid a smile. In the name of
peace—and of prestigious scientific research, attended by rich financial
support and richer academic reputations.

"And it is peace we seek," Brill pressed, "as much as the Church itself
does. With a permanent permit to take Anne Boleyn hostage, we can save
countless lives in this other time stream, just as the Church preserves
peace in our own."

The high priest played with the sleeve of her robe. Lambert could not
see her face. But when she looked up, she was smiling.

"I'll recommend to the All-World Forum that your hostage permit be
granted, Director. I will return in two months to make an official check on
the holy hostage."

Brill, Lambert saw, didn't quite stop himself in time from frowning.
"Two months? But with the entire solar system of hostages to supervise—"

"Two months, Director," Her Holiness said. "The week before the
All-World Forum convenes to vote on revenue and taxation."

"I—"

"Now I would like to inspect the three holy hostages you already hold
for the altruistic prevention of war."

Later, Culhane said to Lambert, "He did not explain it very well. It
could have been made so much more urgent… it is urgent. Those bodies
rotting in Cornwall…" He shuddered.

Lambert looked at him. "You care. You genuinely do."

He looked back at her in astonishment. "And you don't? You must, to
work on this project!"

"I care," Lambert said. "But not like that."
 "Like what?"

She tried to clarify it for him, for herself. "The bodies rotting… I see
them. But it's not our own history—"

"What does that matter? They're still human!"

He was so earnest. Intensity burned on him like skin tinglers. Did
Culhane even use skin tinglers? Lambert wondered. Fellow researchers
spoke of him as an ascetic, giving all his energy, all his time to the project.
A woman in his domicile had told Lambert he even lived chaste, doing a
voluntary celibacy mission for the entire length of his research grant.
Lambert had never met anyone who actually did that. It was intriguing.