"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - The Room of Lost Souls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

popular out here. Most of the spacers sitting in this bar are the children or
grandchildren of the losers.

“That was a hundred years ago,” I say.

“So you do know the wars.” Her shoulders rise up and down in a small
sigh. She apparently expected to tell me about them.

“You’re awfully young to be the daughter of a supreme commander
from those days.” I purposely don’t say the wars’ name. It’s better not to rile
up the other patrons.

She nods. “I’m a post-loss baby.”

It takes me a minute to understand her. At first I thought she meant
post-loss of the Colonnade Wars, but then I realize that anyone titled
supreme commander in that war had been on the winning side. So she
meant loss of something else.

“He’s missing?” I ask before I can stop myself.

“He has been for my entire life,” she says.

“Was he missing before you were born?”

She takes a deep breath, as if she’s considering whether or not she
should tell me. Her caution piques my curiosity. For the first time, I’m
interested in what she’s saying.

“For fifty years,” she says quietly.

“Fifty standard years?” I ask.

She nods. If I’m guessing her age right, and if she’s not lying, then
her father went missing before the peace treaties were signed.

“Was he missing in action?” I ask.

She shakes her head.

“A prisoner of war?” Our side—well, the side that populates this part
of space, which is only mine by default—didn’t give the prisoners back
even though that was one of the terms of the treaty.

“That’s what we thought,” she says.

The “we” is new. I wonder if it means she and her family or she and
someone else.

“But?” I ask.