"Ann Maxwell - The Jaws of Menx" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maxwell Ann)

effort, he met her glance. Though he was taller than the Concord average, he had to look up slightly. Her
eyes were neither purple nor blue but rather a restless combination of both, like Menx skies.
Suddenly Rhane sensed great age, an intuition that seemed to spread through him from the wrist
Meriel had held. He bowed to her in Siol’s reflexive respect for longevity. Her fingertip touched his
forehead in proper response.
At the instant their flesh met, images passed too rapidly for Rhane to assess, yet somehow he knew
that she had answered all of the questions he was going to ask.
“What—who are you?” asked Rhane, struggling to control his voice.
“I’m a Carifil.” Meriel paused, then almost smiled when Rhane showed no comprehension. “Wait.”
She held up a long-fingered hand. “Think about the word ‘Carifil’ for a moment.”
Rhane thought. At first mere was only an inchoate sense of borrowed memory. He repeated the
word in his mind, trying to focus his thoughts. Knowledge crystallized, prismatic with the colors of a
thousand planets. Carifil. A combination of unusual mental gifts and unflinching discipline. Carifil came
from every planet but owed allegiance to none. Their loyalty was to the ideal of a Concord of Planets, a
Concord whose first article of faith was that each race had a unique, invaluable contribution to make to
the future of intelligent life, a contribution that must be nurtured and protected. That, at least, was the
ideal. The reality was sometimes a planet like Menx ....
“Menx,” said Rhane. “You’re here because I requested use of the Menx Access.”
“Yes.” Meriel paused. “Concord made a mistake with Menx.”
“A mistake? How?”
“That’s what we want to know,” said Meriel dryly. “In two Centrex months, Menx will be
offered—and will refuse—Concord membership. We’ll survive that, naturally. But Menx won’t.”
“Scavengers,” said Rhane, distaste flattening the customary depth of his voice.
“Exactly. Once Menx’s Century of Protection ends”—long fingers hesitated—“the Menx Access will
be destroyed and the planet will be abandoned. Scavengers will come down in lightships. Menx is
temperate, varied and metal-rich. A prize for cultures that require conquest or expansion or simply
change.”
Unconsciously, Rhane moved his head in a curt gesture of rejection. Like the Carifil, he believed that
each planet, each culture, was both pragmatically and philosophically vital to the Concord.
“Why?” demanded Rhane. “Why would Menx refuse to join the Concord?”
“We don’t know.”
“What about their T’aeln mentor? Can’t Lor Jastre influence his Menx wards to accept Concord?”
Elegant fingers moved ambiguously. Meriel’s eyes shifted from blue to near-purple, reminding Rhane
vividly of Menx’s twilight skies.
“The T’aeln mentor is trying to convince the Concord that Menx should be proscribed or at least
prohibited until the source of Menx melting sickness is understood and eradicated. Thus, the question of
Menx’s acceptance or rejection of Concord would not arise,” she said.
Rhane tried not to think of Cezine, his half brother, melting into shapelessness and death, his last
moments lost forever on an abandoned planet. The woman’s lips shaped another sad smile. She spoke in
a language Rhane had never heard, and her fingers rested for an instant on his wrist. Comfort spread
from her touch, radiating through him.
“I know,” she said softly, sadly. “Your half brother melted on Menx.”
“He was alone,” said Rhane. “No en Jacaroen was there to bring his last cup or his death moments
back to Siol. No en Jacaroen has even stood where Cezine died.”
Rhane’s hands flexed in unconscious emotion. When he realized what he was doing, he concealed his
hands in the enormous pockets of his Siolan desert shirt.
“I doubt that anyone but an en Jacaroen could appreciate what Cezine’s unrecorded death means to
the en Jacaroen nation,” Rhane said carefully. “And to Siol. The lack of Cezine’s death moments
threatens our very history. It’s a loose thread that could unravel everything back to the beginning of time.
No en Jacaroen has ever died so ... alone.”