"R. Garcia y Robertson - Teen Angel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robertson R Garcia Y)

led her through the hatch, into the cabin.
Immense vistas opened up before her. Picture windows looked out over
forest and sea, as if the cabin sat on a pine-clad pinnacle above a river valley filled
with woods and farmland. In the foreground she saw a fishing village, and, farther
down river, a port city stood at the mouth of a fjord. Storm clouds hung over the
distant ocean, but an orange-red sun shone down on the cabin, framed by a small
pair of moons. All extremely unreal, since the cabin was buried deep in a starship,
behind layers of armored bulkheads. Living quarters on Fafnir were still those of a
deep space survey ship, using 3V and sensurround to keep claustrophobia at bay.
Deirdre could smell the pines, and hear birds singing above the drone of
insects. Rock climbers waved to her from a nearby pinnacle, a fun group of healthy
young people, close enough to call to from the “balcony” beyond the windows--if
you wanted to talk to holos. She asked Hess, “Is this world real?”
“Elysium, Delta Eridani II, we raided it once.” Hess grinned at the virtual
landscape. “Not a full out landing--Delta E is too far in for that--just a picked team
with pre-set targets.” Hess meant a kidnapping. Not all slaver crimes were on the
horrific scale of the New Harmony Raid; sometimes they slipped into civilized
systems, snatching up valuable individuals for ransom, or resale. “But a rousing
success nonetheless.” Hess preened, as if she should congratulate him.
 He already had her missing the SuperCats. “Can I change it?” Deirdre asked.
Delta E meant nothing to her.
“Your bunkmates might object.” Hess nodded at the balcony, where two
children had come out to call to the climbers--a boy about eight or nine with
impossibly purple hair, spiked on top, and a girl a couple of years older, whose
squared-off blonde hair ended in a shoulder-level blue stripe.
“Bunkmates?” She thought they were holos. The purple-haired boy scrambled
up onto the balcony rail, leaning over the virtual gap, waving vigorously at the
climbers, while the blonde girl with the blue fringe looked bored. Alike enough to be
brother and sister, they wore expensive Home System outfits, cut down versions of
adult fashions. Appalled to find these were real kids, Deirdre hissed, “Who are
they?”
“Insurance,” Hess replied airily.
“What does that mean?” It was bad enough that she was going to die--did she
have to watch kids die as well?
“They are the grandchildren of Albrecht Van Ho, Director General of River
Lines,” Hess explained. “That pair of AMCs headed insystem belong to River Lines.
They might be a shade less eager to vaporize us with these two aboard.”
Maybe. Personally, she hated staking her existence on corporate pity. River
Lines had not operated for centuries in the worst stretches of the Eridani by pulling
punches. Having no mercy themselves, slavers misjudged kindness in others--taking
it for weakness, or stupidity. Did anyone really think the Navy would give up and go
home rather than fry some CEO’s grandkids? For Priscilla’s sake, why not just load
Fafnir up with baby puppies?
Deirdre had long ago stopped trying to explain compassion to Commander
Hess. New Harmony had taught her to do good for others. “Love thy neighbor,” is
what the King said, and what he practiced, moving Priscilla in next door to
Graceland. It worked for Elvis, and it worked for her. Compassion came easy, when
a kind word or a simple favor from a girl so lovely as her brightened anyone’s day.
Deirdre liked people thinking her a darling angel--not knowing how little effort it
took. Like giving away Cadillacs, when you owned a zillion of them.