"E. E. Doc Smith - D' Alembert 9 - The Omicron Invasion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

nothing I could . . ."

"Paul." Helena swiveled her seat more to face him and cupped her right hand over his mouth,
silencing his outburst. "Do you mean to say you're proposing to me now?"

Fortier took a deep breath, and Helena took her hand away from his mouth again. "That's what I
thought I was doing," the captain said.

Helena laughed and reached across to ruffle his hair. "Idiot! You haven't asked me a thing yet."
Her movement in freefall caused her to spin slightly in the cabin, and she quickly had to stop ruffling his
hair and grab at the dashboard to steady herself again.

Looking flustered, Fortier said, "Oh. In that case, Duchess Helena Kirsten von Wilmenhorst,
would you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?"

Helena's laughter stopped. Prying her left hand out of Fortier's rigid grip, she lifted both hands to
cup his handsome face and looked straight into his brown eyes. "After all the time we've spent together,
after all we've come to mean to each other, did you honestly expect me to say anything but yes?"

Fortier gulped and averted his eyes. "Well, but you're a duchess and heir to all of Sector Four.
You may even end up running SOTE when your father retires. I'm just a commoner and an ordinary
officer. I have no fortune, nothing in particular I can offer you . . ."

"Hold it right there, tovarishch," Helena said, a spark of mock anger in her eyes. "First of all, the
Stanley Doctrine gives commoners as much right to marry duchesses as anyone else, in case you've
forgotten your grade school history. Second, I don't need a fortune; I've already got one. Third, there is
nothing ordinary about you. You are one of the most charming, intelligent, handsome, dedicated, talented,
and wonderful men I know. You are a prize catch, and tonight I think I'm the luckiest lady in the Galaxy.
The answer to your question, Captain, is a resounding yes, yes, yes!"

She pulled his face closer to her own and the two spent a long time in a passionate kiss, Helena's
waist-length black hair slowly drifting in the air currents as her new fiancé's hands slid around her back.
For the rest of their several Earth orbits there was nothing nervous or awkward about Paul Fortier's
behavior at all.

***

Even hours later, when the Mark Forty had been brought back to its hangar near the Hall of State
for Sector Four in Miami and the two lovers had reluctantly gone their separate ways for the night, Helena
still felt as though she were in orbit. She'd been in love before, several times, but it had never worked out
the way she'd always expected. In the case of Jules d'Alembert, the problem of coming from worlds with
seriously different gravities had made the prospect of marriage impossible. In another case, the man had
not been as serious about her as she'd been about him. Another man turned out to be merely a golddigger -
a fact she'd learned just in time to prevent her making a costly mistake. Lately, the couple of times she'd
gotten deeply involved she found herself having to make career decisions—and in both cases, the men
came out second best to her position with SOTE. She'd almost begun to despair of ever finding the right
person for her, and had poured most of her energies into her work for the last few years. In Paul Fortier,
though, she felt she'd found the perfect match. He was a few years older than she was, mature, athletic,
and very intelligent. His career also matched well with hers; they were both only too aware of the
exigencies of intelligence work. Both were fiercely dedicated to the welfare of the Empire, giving them