"Mickey Zucker Reichert - The Books of Barakhai 01 - The Beasts of Barakhai" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reichert Mickey Zucker)

mind's eye, he imagined a glare that would send tougher men skittering for cover.
The distant sound of laughter wafted across the receiver, followed by song. The background noise
brought Collins back to his childhood, when his parents lived together and his Uncle Harry and Aunt
Meg spent every Thanksgiving with them. Harry loved to tell jokes but butchered the punchlines. Meg
would try to correct them, laughing so hard that she usually only succeeded in making them hopelessly
obtuse. The interaction between the husband and wife always seemed so much funnier than the joke,
even correctly told. Collins had spent last Thanksgiving with his mother and her new boyfriend, a
paunchy, socially inept engineer with three visiting children he could not control. This year, the two were
spending Thanksgiving in Vegas on their honeymoon. Collins' father was touring Europe with his quirky
girlfriend, Aviva. Harry and Meg had not invited him.
"You'd better be calling from a cell phone." Marlys' frigid voice jarred Collins back to the present.
Collins sighed, hands sliding instinctively to the cell phone, pager, and multitool at his belt. "I'm still at
the lab."
"Why?" Her tone implied no explanation short of nuclear catastrophe would suffice.
Collins knew better, but he could not resist another joke. "The rats invited me for dinner. I couldn't
resist. . . food sticks."
"That's not funny."
"I'm sorry."
"Am I a joke to you?"
"Of course not." Collins rolled his eyes to the whitewashed ceiling, wishing he had not attempted
humor. "I'd be there if I could, Marlys. You know that. But the power system's been touch and go with
all the grain harvests. Lab loses electricity long enough, crash go some of the experiments. Including
Dundee's two-million-dollar grant."
"You're not working for Dundee," Marlys reminded. "Why can't her grad student handle it?"
Collins sat on one of the stools, propping his sneaker-clad feet on another. "Marly, come on. You
know Dave's parents live in Florida."
"Don't call me Marly—"
"Once they all found out my family wasn't available for the holiday—"
"It's Marlys, Benton, not Marly. And why do you let people take advantage of you?"
Collins gave the expected reply, though he had tired of it. "Just call me Ben. And it's not a matter of
taking advantage. It's—"
"Demarkietto's a slave driver."
Though true, it was not what Collins had been about to say. "Well, yes, but—"
"Why don't you just tell him to go fuck himself?"
"Marlys!" Collins had never heard her use that word before.
"You have a right to a holiday, too."
Collins hated to remind Marlys of his shortcomings, especially when she had her mother to disparage
him. "A lot of candidates applied for lab positions this year. I was lucky to get one."
Marlys refused to concede. "No, Demarkietto's the lucky one. Lucky he could get any grad assistant
after Carrie Quinton."
Collins had also heard the rumors, that the beautiful postdoctoral genetics student had disappeared
without a trace in an effort to escape Professor Demarkietto's demands. "I need the money, Marlys. I'm
already three payments behind on student loans. And I need the recommendation. Whatever you or
Carrie Quinton thinks of ol' D-Mark, he's well-respected in the scientific community."
Something white caught the edge of Collins' vision.
"Benton, my parents are starting to think you're unreliable."
Distracted, Collins returned to wit. "So is student loan services."
"Benton!"
A white rat scurried from behind the desks, scrambling through the gap in the partially opened door.
"Damn it!"