[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
second thoughts about me, my friends, and this whole crisis-prone outing.
Before I could draw her aside and ask, Impervia's voice cut through the
chatter.
"Enough! We have to find a boat for Niagara Falls. Afast boat. Did you see
any possibilities in the harbor?"
"Not among the fishing boats," Pelinor answered. "For speed, you'd want the
marina; the expensive pleasure yachts that rich people keep here over winter."
"I'll bet," Myoko said, "we could find a yacht that wasn't securely locked
up..."
"Don't even think it," Impervia growled.
Myoko pretended to be surprised. "We can't commandeer a boat in the service
of God?"
Impervia only glared.
"I know people in town," Pelinor said. "Horse breeders with money. They
probably own boats."
"If we're thinking of people with money," said the Caryatid, "there's always
Gretchen Kinnderboom..."
Everyone turned toward me even Annah, who I'd hoped might not have heard any
gossip about me and Gretchen.
I sighed. "Yes, Gretchen has a boat and she claims it's the fastest in Dover.
That's likely just idle boasting, the way she always..." I stopped myself.
"Gretchen has a boat. It's supposedly fast. Come on." Silently, I led the way
forward.
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Kinnderboom Cottage was thirty times the size of any cottage on Earth; but
Gretchen reveled in twee diminutives, like calling her thoroughbred stallion
"Prancy Pony" and the three-century oak in her side yard "Iddle-Widdle Acorn."
(Gretchen had a habit of lapsing into baby talk at the least provocation. She
was that kind of woman... and beautiful enough that I often didn't care.)
Like all houses in this part of Dover, the Kinnderboom mansion squatted in
the midst of a pointlessly large estate overlooking the lake. The building
itself was an up-and-down thing, equipped with so many gables it seemed more
like a depot where carpenters stored their inventory than someplace people
actually lived. Wherever you looked, there was an architecturalfeature. Each
window had a curlicued metal railing; each door had a portico, an arch, or an
assemblage of Corinthian columns. And everything changed on a regular basis:
an army of construction crews, landscapers, and interior decorators passed
through each year, ripping out the old, slapping up the new. I don't think
Gretchen really cared what any of the workers did she just hired them so she
could have more underlings to boss around.
The workers were always men.
The grounds of Kinnderboom Cottage were surrounded by a wall; but I had a key
to the gate, plus a good deal of practice sneaking in under cover of darkness.
I let my friends enter, locked the gate behind us, then motioned everyone to
stand still. Ten seconds... twenty... thirty... whereupon an unearthly
creature appeared from the shadows, his stomach pincers clicking as he walked.
"Ahh," he said. "Baron Dhubhai."
Myoko turned toward me and mouthed the wordBaron? I shrugged. I had no title
in my native Sheba no one did, except a few old men, indulgently allowed to
call themselves princes but Gretchen knew how rich my family was, and she
fervently believed such money would make me at least a baron in any
"civilized" province. Therefore, her household slaves were obliged to address
me in that fashion.
As for this particular slave, he was the size of a full-grown bull but built
like a lobster. Eight legs. Fan tail. Chitinous carapace colored cherry red,
though it looked nearly black in the darkness. His body angled up
centaur-style to the height of a human, so his head was a hand's breadth
higher than mine. He always had a light smell of vinegar, faint here in the
open air but still quite noticeable. His face: flat and wide with dangling
whiskers and a spike-nosed snout. His arms: two spindly ones almost always
folded across his chest and two nasty pincer claws at waist level, jutting
forward at just the right height to disembowel an adult human. He was still
clicking those claws idly as he looked us up and down.
From past visits, I knew this alien's name was Oberon. He served on guard
duty every night; Oberon was one of Gretchen's most trusted "demons."
All of Gretchen's staff were extraterrestrials. In fact, the Kinnderboom
fortune came from "demonmongery": breeding and selling alien slaves. Gretchen
didn't dirty her hands in the family business she didn't dirty her hands
withany sort of work but she kept more than a dozen ETs in her household "for
the sake of appearances." Foremost among those ETs were Oberon and his family,
who came from some species with human-level intelligence but an antlike
predisposition to follow the commands of a queen. Even though Gretchen
couldn't have resembled the queens of Oberon's race, she still filled that
Page 109
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
role in his eyes. After all, Oberon had never seen a queen... and he'd been
raised from the egg by Gretchen herself, brought up to obey her every whim.
There in the yard, lobsterlike Oberon was obviously trying to decide how
Gretchen's whims would run tonight. If I'd been alone, he would have let me
proceed to the house immediately; Gretchen's standing orders were to let me
pass, and she'd decide for herself whether to admit me to her glorious
presence. But I'd come with five strangers in tow, and Oberon wasn't eager to
let them close to his exalted mistress. He belonged to his species' warrior
caste, and his first instinct was to keep his queen safe from outsiders.
He clicked his pincers softly. "We weren't expecting guests tonight, baron."
"I know. But we need to see Gretchen immediately."
"The question is, doesshe need to seeyou?"
"Excellent point, good fellow," said Pelinor. Our noble knight liked aliens
almost as much as he liked horses; he'd been gazing in admiration at Oberon
ever since the big ET had appeared from the darkness. And just as he had a
feel for horse psychology, Pelinor could guess what was on Oberon's mind. "How
about this," he told the demon. "You keep us here while, uhh, Baron Dhubhai
goes for a private chat with Ms. Kinnderboom. No problem with that, is there?"
Oberon nodded immediately and waved me toward the house. I gave my friends
one last glance (attempting a soulful meeting-of-the-eyes with Annah, then a
warning glare at Impervia, who was gazing at Oberon with the thoughtful look
of someone considering where to punch a lobster for maximum effect); then I
hurried up the gravel drive. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl fopke.keep.pl
second thoughts about me, my friends, and this whole crisis-prone outing.
Before I could draw her aside and ask, Impervia's voice cut through the
chatter.
"Enough! We have to find a boat for Niagara Falls. Afast boat. Did you see
any possibilities in the harbor?"
"Not among the fishing boats," Pelinor answered. "For speed, you'd want the
marina; the expensive pleasure yachts that rich people keep here over winter."
"I'll bet," Myoko said, "we could find a yacht that wasn't securely locked
up..."
"Don't even think it," Impervia growled.
Myoko pretended to be surprised. "We can't commandeer a boat in the service
of God?"
Impervia only glared.
"I know people in town," Pelinor said. "Horse breeders with money. They
probably own boats."
"If we're thinking of people with money," said the Caryatid, "there's always
Gretchen Kinnderboom..."
Everyone turned toward me even Annah, who I'd hoped might not have heard any
gossip about me and Gretchen.
I sighed. "Yes, Gretchen has a boat and she claims it's the fastest in Dover.
That's likely just idle boasting, the way she always..." I stopped myself.
"Gretchen has a boat. It's supposedly fast. Come on." Silently, I led the way
forward.
Page 108
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Kinnderboom Cottage was thirty times the size of any cottage on Earth; but
Gretchen reveled in twee diminutives, like calling her thoroughbred stallion
"Prancy Pony" and the three-century oak in her side yard "Iddle-Widdle Acorn."
(Gretchen had a habit of lapsing into baby talk at the least provocation. She
was that kind of woman... and beautiful enough that I often didn't care.)
Like all houses in this part of Dover, the Kinnderboom mansion squatted in
the midst of a pointlessly large estate overlooking the lake. The building
itself was an up-and-down thing, equipped with so many gables it seemed more
like a depot where carpenters stored their inventory than someplace people
actually lived. Wherever you looked, there was an architecturalfeature. Each
window had a curlicued metal railing; each door had a portico, an arch, or an
assemblage of Corinthian columns. And everything changed on a regular basis:
an army of construction crews, landscapers, and interior decorators passed
through each year, ripping out the old, slapping up the new. I don't think
Gretchen really cared what any of the workers did she just hired them so she
could have more underlings to boss around.
The workers were always men.
The grounds of Kinnderboom Cottage were surrounded by a wall; but I had a key
to the gate, plus a good deal of practice sneaking in under cover of darkness.
I let my friends enter, locked the gate behind us, then motioned everyone to
stand still. Ten seconds... twenty... thirty... whereupon an unearthly
creature appeared from the shadows, his stomach pincers clicking as he walked.
"Ahh," he said. "Baron Dhubhai."
Myoko turned toward me and mouthed the wordBaron? I shrugged. I had no title
in my native Sheba no one did, except a few old men, indulgently allowed to
call themselves princes but Gretchen knew how rich my family was, and she
fervently believed such money would make me at least a baron in any
"civilized" province. Therefore, her household slaves were obliged to address
me in that fashion.
As for this particular slave, he was the size of a full-grown bull but built
like a lobster. Eight legs. Fan tail. Chitinous carapace colored cherry red,
though it looked nearly black in the darkness. His body angled up
centaur-style to the height of a human, so his head was a hand's breadth
higher than mine. He always had a light smell of vinegar, faint here in the
open air but still quite noticeable. His face: flat and wide with dangling
whiskers and a spike-nosed snout. His arms: two spindly ones almost always
folded across his chest and two nasty pincer claws at waist level, jutting
forward at just the right height to disembowel an adult human. He was still
clicking those claws idly as he looked us up and down.
From past visits, I knew this alien's name was Oberon. He served on guard
duty every night; Oberon was one of Gretchen's most trusted "demons."
All of Gretchen's staff were extraterrestrials. In fact, the Kinnderboom
fortune came from "demonmongery": breeding and selling alien slaves. Gretchen
didn't dirty her hands in the family business she didn't dirty her hands
withany sort of work but she kept more than a dozen ETs in her household "for
the sake of appearances." Foremost among those ETs were Oberon and his family,
who came from some species with human-level intelligence but an antlike
predisposition to follow the commands of a queen. Even though Gretchen
couldn't have resembled the queens of Oberon's race, she still filled that
Page 109
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
role in his eyes. After all, Oberon had never seen a queen... and he'd been
raised from the egg by Gretchen herself, brought up to obey her every whim.
There in the yard, lobsterlike Oberon was obviously trying to decide how
Gretchen's whims would run tonight. If I'd been alone, he would have let me
proceed to the house immediately; Gretchen's standing orders were to let me
pass, and she'd decide for herself whether to admit me to her glorious
presence. But I'd come with five strangers in tow, and Oberon wasn't eager to
let them close to his exalted mistress. He belonged to his species' warrior
caste, and his first instinct was to keep his queen safe from outsiders.
He clicked his pincers softly. "We weren't expecting guests tonight, baron."
"I know. But we need to see Gretchen immediately."
"The question is, doesshe need to seeyou?"
"Excellent point, good fellow," said Pelinor. Our noble knight liked aliens
almost as much as he liked horses; he'd been gazing in admiration at Oberon
ever since the big ET had appeared from the darkness. And just as he had a
feel for horse psychology, Pelinor could guess what was on Oberon's mind. "How
about this," he told the demon. "You keep us here while, uhh, Baron Dhubhai
goes for a private chat with Ms. Kinnderboom. No problem with that, is there?"
Oberon nodded immediately and waved me toward the house. I gave my friends
one last glance (attempting a soulful meeting-of-the-eyes with Annah, then a
warning glare at Impervia, who was gazing at Oberon with the thoughtful look
of someone considering where to punch a lobster for maximum effect); then I
hurried up the gravel drive. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]