MaybeFromJupiter: переводы

→‘Adelice Lewys. Access granted,’ it chirps at me, and the door clicks unlocked.

→I press my palm against it, silently willing it to open and wishing I didn’t have an audience right now.

→‘You’ll need to provide your proof of identity to the scanner.’ He points to the companel.

→The guard at the entrance to the upper studios regards me with suspicion. I’ve never been here before, so I’m counting on my promotion to Crewel apprentice to get me in, but it’s pretty obvious I have no idea what the security procedure is. The heavy red door to the upper studios won’t budge, and I’m eyeing the companel next to it when the guard clears his throat.

→‘This moment exists outside of that reality. I can’t really explain it.’ But he’s staring at me like I’m a freak. I don’t blame him. It’s not supposed to work this way. ‘I know you are supposed to need a loom to weave, but I can see the weave without one.’

→‘It’s frozen,’ he murmurs in disbelief. ‘But how?’

→‘I don’t think so.’ Biting my lip, I gesture for him to be silent and then carefully pull the strands separating us from the nearby fire. It roars back to life. I quickly reweave them, and it stops again.

→‘Can they hear us?’

→‘I don’t know,’ I admit.

→‘What does that mean?’ he asks, reaching out toward the golden web, but pulling back before his hands touch it.

→‘I wove another moment.’ I’m as surprised as he is that it worked. ‘I wasn’t sure I could.’ This is what I’d done at testing. Slipped, and caught the weave of the actual room, not the one they’d given us on the loom, and messed it up a little. I’d smoothed it right back out, but that was all it took. I’d been studying the weave around me for years, enough to know that what I’d done would be noticed by the proctors administering the test. But I’d never considered how I could use this skill until now.

→‘What did you do?’ he whispers.

→‘Ad, you can eat anything if you’re hungry enough.’ Jost grins over a chicken leg.

→‘You can eat bears and cougars?’ I screw up my face in mock disgust.

→‘Bears and cougars, mostly.’

→‘What kinds of animals constitute large game?’ I keep my voice casual. No companel would detect anything unusual – or even interesting – this way.

→Jost nods, serious again. ‘I was interested in large game. The kind that feeds a lot of people and brings in money.’

→‘So you were a hunter?’ I ask, returning back to our code and carelessly scooping rice into my mouth: my bandaged hands still proving a nuisance to fine motor skills – and forks.

→‘Unfortunately, your parents committed treason, and of course there was the issue of the contraband found in your house,’ she tells me, ‘so your parents have been removed.’

→‘Then you already know we can be merciful,’ she replies innocently. I want to wrap the wire around her thin, pale neck.