"Andre Norton - Time Traders 5 - Firehand" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

You could accept permanent exile, Ross, but maybe years or a life of
uncertainty and waiting—I wasn't about to do that to you. I was having
too much of a taste of it myself."

Murdock looked swiftly at him. "I'm sorry." His head lowered. "I haven't
been much help."

Gordon smiled. "You've done your share."

"You said a matter of days?" the younger agent prompted, once more
feeling the eagerness rising in him. Eagerness? He felt as if he were
returning to life.

He nodded. "The Foanna shared my opinion and have been helping me
watch for some kind of signal that a breakthrough might be imminent."
He grimaced. "To put it more accurately, I've been trying to help them.
The Lady Ynvalda discovered something yesterday morning, the beginning
of a disturbance, that seems to be what we've been waiting to see."

"Maybe," Ross said sharply. The spacers had traveled through a Terran
time gate once before, wreaking havoc at every level, and even all of their
own race could not be classed as friends. Humankind was ever cursed by
its divisions, and there were other efforts similar to the Project whose
operators would use them as savagely as any shipload of Baldies bent on
vengeance if they got half a chance.

"We're not going to be standing there with big smiles and open arms
when—if—that gate opens, not until we're damn certain who's stepping
through it and why."
 Murdock's eyes suddenly went once more to the ocean. "Gordon, what
about Karara? There's no going back for her. There can't be."

"She's an agent," the other said quietly.

"She was. She's Foanna now, or their creature. If she returns with us,
the brain boys'll just grab her and take her apart, or try to do it. She'll
never have any kind of life again."

Ross watched the happy trio, in pain himself at the thought of what
they might so soon have to endure, worse in a great measure than his own
recent misery. All three would be affected, too. Such was their bonding
that what hurt the human would hurt the sea mammals as well. "Hawaika,
this Hawaika, is Karara's place now. Let her stay, and the dolphins, too, if
they're all willing. Just tell the brass they didn't make it through the fight."

You are generous, Younger Brother, and blessed. To be able to feel and
feel for another's pain is no small gift, albeit not always an easy one for
the bearer.

That sounded, not in his ears, but directly in his mind. Ross had grown