"Rusch,_Kristine_Kathryn_-_The_Retrieval_Artist" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

"According to your father."
"According to anyone who knew her." Anetka's voice was soft. "You saw the vids."
I nodded.
"That was mild, I guess, for what he did to her."
I leaned back in the chair, lifting the front two legs off the ground. "So how come he didn't treat his other women that way?"
Something passed through her eyes so quickly that I wasn't able to see what the expression was. Suspicion? Fear? I couldn't tell.
"My father never allowed himself to get close to anyone else."
"Not even his Broadway actress?"
She frowned, then said, "Oh, Linda? No. Not even her. They were using each other to throw off the media. She had a more significant relationship with one of the major critics, and she didn't want that to get out."
"What about you?" I asked that last softly. "If he hurt your mother, why didn't he hurt you?"
She put her other hand on the chair as if she were steadying herself. "Who says he didn't?"
And in that flatness of tone, I heard all the complaints I'd ever heard from clones. She had legal protection, of course. She was fully human. But she didn't have familial protection. She wasn't part of any real group. She didn't have defenders, except those she hired herself.
But I didn't believe it, not entirely. She was still lying to me. She was still keeping me slightly off balance. Something was missing, but I couldn't find it. I'd done all the digging I could reasonably do. I had no direction to go except after the missing wife -- if I chose to continue working on this case. This was the last point at which I could comfortably extricate myself from the entire mess.
"You're not telling me everything," I said.
Again, the movement with the eyes. So subtle. So quick. I wondered if she had learned to cover up her emotions from her father.
"My father won't harm her," she said. "If you want, I'll even sign a waiver guaranteeing that."
It seemed the perfect solution to a superficial problem. I had a hunch there were other problems lurking below.
"I'll have one sent to you," I said.
"Are you still taking the case?"
"Are you still lying to me?"
She paused, the dress billowing around her in the static-charged air. "I need you to find my sister," she said.
And that much, we both knew to be true.
VI
My work is nine-tenths research and one-tenth excitement. Most of the research comes in the beginning, and it's dry to most people, although I still find the research fascinating. It's also idiosyncratic and part of the secret behind my reputation. I usually don't describe how I do the research -- and I never explain it to clients. I usually summarize it, like this:
It took me four months to do the preliminary research on Sylvy Sobol. I started from the premise that she was pregnant with a single girl child. A pregnant woman did one of three things: she carried the baby to term, she miscarried, or she aborted. After dealing with hospital records for what seemed like weeks, I determined that she carried the baby to term. Or at least, she hadn't gotten rid of it before she disappeared.
A pregnant woman had fewer relocation options than a non-pregnant one. She couldn't travel as far or on as many forms of transport because it might harm the fetus. Several planets, hospitable to humans after they'd acclimatized, were not places someone in the middle of pregnancy was allowed to go. The pregnancy actually made my job easier, and I was glad for it.
Whoever had hidden her was good, but no disappearance service was perfect. They all had cracks in their systems, some revealing themselves in certain types of disappearance, others in all cases past a certain layer of complexity. I knew those flaws as well as I knew the scars and blemishes on my own hands. And I exploited them with ease.
At the end of four months, I had five leads on the former Mrs. Sobol. At the end of five months, I had eliminated two of those leads. At the end of six months, I had a pretty good idea which of the remaining three leads was the woman I was looking for.
I got in my ship, and headed for Mars.
VII
In the hundred years since the Disty first entered this solar system, they have taken over Mars. The human-run mineral operations and the ship bases are still there, but the colonies are all Disty-run, and some are Disty-built.
_The Emmeline_ has clearance on most planets where humans make their homes. Mars is no different. I docked at the Dunes, above the Arctic Circle, and wished I were going elsewhere. It was the Martian winter, and here, in the largest field of sand dunes in the solar system, that meant several months of unrelenting dark.
I had never understood how the locals put up with this. But I hadn't understood a lot of things. The domes here, mostly of human construction, had an artificial lighting system built in, but the Disty hated the approximation of a twenty-four hour day. Since the Disty had taken over the northernmost colonies, darkness outside and artificial lights inside were the hallmarks of winter.
The Disty made other alterations as well. The Disty were small creatures with large heads, large eyes, and narrow bodies. They hated the feeling of wide open spaces, and so in many parts of the Sahara Dome, as Terrans called this place, false ceilings had been built in, and corridors had been compressed. Buildings were added into the wider spaces, getting rid of many passageways and making the entire place seem like a rat's warren. Most adult humans had to crouch to walk comfortably through the city streets and some, in disgust, had bought small carts so that they could ride. The result was a congestion that I found claustrophobic at the best of times. I hated crouching when I walked, and I hated the stink of so many beings in such a confined space.
Many Terran buildings rose higher than the ceiling level of the street, but to discourage that wide-open-spaces feel, the Disty built more structures, many of them so close together that there was barely enough room for a human to stick his arm between them. Doors lined the crowded streets, and the only identifying marks on most places were carved into the frame along the door's side. The carvings were difficult to see in the weird lighting, even if there weren't the usual crowds struggling to get through the streets to God knew where.
My candidate lived in a building owned by the Disty. It took me two passes to find the building's number, and another to realize that I had found the right place. A small sign, in English, advertised accommodations fit for humans, and my back and I hoped that the sign was right.
It was. The entire building had been designed with humans in mind. The Disty had proven themselves to be able interstellar traders, and quite willing to adapt to local customs when it suited them. It showed in the interior design of this place. Once I stepped through the door, I was able to stand upright, although the top of my head did brush the ceiling. To my left, a sign pointed toward the main office, another pointed to some cramped stairs, and a third pointed to the recreation area.
I glanced at the main office before I explored any farther. The office was up front, and had the same human-sized ceilings. In order to cope, the Disty running the place sat on its desk, its long feet pressed together in concentration. I passed it, and went to the recreation area. I would look for the woman here before I went door to door upstairs.
The recreation area was about half the size of a human-made room for the same purpose. Still, the Disty managed to cram a lot of stuff in here, and the closeness of everything -- while comfortable for the Disty -- made it uncomfortable for any human. All five humans in the room were huddled near the bar on the far end. It was the only place with a walking path large enough to allow a full-grown man through.
To get there, I had to go past the Ping-Pong table, and a small section set aside for Go players. Several Disty were playing Go -- they felt it was the best thing they had discovered on the planet Earth, with Ping-Pong a close second -- sitting on the tables so that their heads were as near the ceiling as they could get. Two more Disty were standing on the table, playing Ping-Pong. None of them paid me any attention at all.
I wound my way through the tight space between the Go players and the Ping-Pong table, ducking once to avoid being whapped in the head with an out-of-control Ping-Pong ball. I noted three other Disty watching the games with rapt interest. The humans, on the other hand, had their backs to the rest of the room. They were sitting on the tilting bar stools, drinking, and not looking too happy about anything.
A woman who could have been anywhere from thirty to seventy-five sat at one end of the bar. Her black hair fell to the middle of her back, and she wore makeup, an affectation that the Disty seemed to like. She was slender -- anyone who wanted to live comfortably here had to be -- and she wore a silver beaded dress that accented that slimness. Her legs were smooth, and did not bear any marks from mining or other harsh work.
"Susan Wilcox?" I asked as I put my hand on her shoulder and showed her my license.
I felt the tension run through her body, followed by several shivers, but her face gave no sign that anything was wrong.
"Want to go talk?"
She smiled at me, a smooth professional smile that made me feel a little more comfortable. "Sure."
She stood, took my hand as if we'd been friends a long time, and led me onto a little patio someone had cobbled together in a tiny space behind the recreation area. I didn't see the point of the thing until I looked up. This was one of the few places in Sahara where the dome was visible, and through its clear surface, you could see the sky. She pulled over a chair, and I grabbed one as well.
"How did you find me?" she asked.
"I'm not sure I did." I held out my hand. In it was one of my palmtops. "I want to do a DNA check."
She raised her chin slightly. "That's not legal."