"Mary Rosenblum - Splinters of Glass" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rosenblum Mary)

the enormous weight of the ice shell pressing down on them.

Then the crowd thinned and he saw her clearly: Gerta. Her hair shone like
spun gold. Just as he remembered. The tiny hardness of the polished am-monite
pendant beneath his ice suit and therms seemed to dig into his flesh. He covered it
with a palm, instinctively. As if it might call her to him.

She had not changed, after all these years.

That was... bad.

She turned as if she had felt the pressure of his stare. Before those blue, blue
eyes could pierce his shield, Qai fled around the corner of the tea stall, slipping into
a narrow alley, a natural fissure that wandered away from the dome, lined with small
shops carved into the ice; low-end food vendors, mostly, selling gray moss tea and
sea soup. Get the board fixed, pick up the supplies he needed, and get out, he
thought. Do it fast.

She only had one reason to be here.

Him.

Blue moss netted the walls of the fissure, its soft glow brightening as the
reflected light from the Ice Palace faded. Finally the alley widened out into the little
plaza where Karina had her shop. Starfish lamps shed a soft, silvery light on each
side of the carved arch of her doorway, streaking the rough floor of the plaza with
dark shadows. A sweeper raked the traffic-polished ice rough for traction, a
hunched figure with matted gray hair beneath a gray hooded ice tunic and leggings
patched with something that looked like fabric from an EVA suit, maybe an asteroid
miner’s castoff.

Karina had the only shop on the plaza with lamps. Qai slipped beneath the
ornate twined-kelp carvings above her door, wishing briefly that Karina’s shop were
too poor to afford starfish. But even if Gerta had spotted him she had to clear
customs and that was an intricate and complicated dance of bargaining and bribes
on the Snow Queen, the Free Port of Europa. She would be lucky if she got through
in this day period, and considering it was nearly a meal hour, she’d probably be
stuck, forced to share a lavish and hospitable dinner only to pay for the privilege as
she tried to clear her luggage.
 He’d be out in the ice by then.

“Hey, ice-boy.” Karina looked up from the innards of a board lying belly up
on her workbench, pulling off her microgoggles. The crimson fiber lights woven into
her rows of braids glowed red as blood. “Long time no see.” She laughed, her white
teeth glittering in her ebony face. “It occurs to me, ice-boy, that I should build a little
planned obsolescence into your circuitry. If the only way I get to see you is when
your board breaks.”

“You busy, Kar?” He tried to keep any trace of urgency out of his voice.