"Alastair Reynolds - Beyond the Aquila Rift" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Alastair)

"Well, you haven't either," I said.

It wasn't quite true. But who honestly wants to hear that they look about ten years older than the last time
you saw them, even if they still don't look all that bad with it? I thought about how she had looked naked,
memories that I'd kept buried for a decade spooling into daylight. It shamed me that they were still so
vivid, as if some furtive part of my subconscious had been secretly hoarding them through years of
marriage and fidelity.

Greta half smiled. It was as if she knew exactly what I was thinking.

"You were never a good liar, Thorn."

"Yeah. Guess I need some practice."

There was an awkward silence. Neither of us seemed to know what to say next. While we hesitated, the
others floated around us, saying nothing.

"Well," I said. "Who'd have guessed we'd end up meeting like this?"

Greta nodded and offered the palms of her hands in a kind of apology.

"I'm just sorry we aren't meeting under better circumstances," she said. "But if it's any consolation, what
happened wasn't at all your fault. We checked your syntax, and there wasn't a mistake. It's just that now
and then the system throws a glitch."

"Funny how no one likes to talk about that very much," I said.

"Could have been worse, Thorn. I remember what you used to tell me about space travel."

"Yeah? Which particular pearl of wisdom would that have been?"

"If you're in a position to moan about a situation, you've no right to be moaning."

"Christ. Did I actually say that?"
"Mm. And I bet you're regretting it now. But look, it really isn't that bad. You're only twenty days off
schedule." Greta nodded toward the man who had the bad teeth. "Kolding says you'll only need a day of
damage repair before you can move off again, and then another twenty, twenty-five days before you
reach your destination, depending on routing patterns. That's less than six weeks. So you lose the bonus
on this one. Big deal. You're all in one shape, and your ship only needs a little work. Why don't you just
bite the bullet and sign the repair paperwork?"

"I'm not looking forward to another twenty days in the surge tank. There's something else, as well."

"Which is?"

I was about to tell her about Katerina, how she'd have been expecting me back already.

Instead I said: "I'm worried about the others. Suzy and Ray. They've got families expecting them. They'll
be worried."