"Buck, Doris P - Giberel, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Buck Doris Pitkin)

"But this foundling's a she-freak though she is not dwarfish. We watched her in the House Where Stars Are Worshiped. Her fingers on both hands move easily, as with toadfolk, when she thinks no one watches."

Voices said together, "We could lose our own humanity if we opened our clans to a neither-which-nor-t'other."

"Were she to marry some true giberel-who knows-the offspring might be like toadfolk working in the soil all day, as worms do." They murmured, assenting.

"Were she dead, her life blood could water our depleted earth-"

"Depleted for century on century." The giberels chanted it like a ritual.

"Her body could nourish plants which we and the mud-fingered toadfolk are forced to share."

"It would be better so," a chilly voice reasoned, "since she could never be certain of breeding true."

Aramere's large eyes opened wider. She caught a glimpse of a boy a year or two older on the fringes of the crowd. He tried to gesture reassurance, but he was too little to help.

They peered at her in the obscurity. "Who in all the centuries of humanity has had such eyes?" She felt hostility, like a fall into chilly water that would close over her head. She had fallen so once on a December day.

A softer voicer "When she closes her eyes; she has the giberel beauty. Perhaps she was a found child."

"No! Those hands betray her."

"Then why let the toadling live on? Why wait?" It was the chilly water voice.

Aramere began to wriggle desperately. She pressed her toes into the soft earth of the field, trying to jump forward. Starlight helped her to see. Orange starlight. Cold starlight. Starlight like the reddest rose. The stars were friends, she was sure. She took a deep breath, ready to run if once the stiff hands that pressed so hard let her go, even a little.

"Why wait?" the chilly voice asked again.

Hands pressed her tighter yet.

"How shall we kill?" It was the cold voice.

"Break the neck and leave the body?"
"Bury. Then she will nourish what grows here." In a rush: "Bury her alive."

"Show hands. Show hands for the manner of this child's death. A broken neck?" Silence fell. In the stillness Aramere saw three hands go into a slow clench and lift over slim bodies. Harm! Harm to you! the fists screamed. She wanted to put her hands over her large eyes to shut out the screaming of the fists. She crouched
frozen now with terror. She could have done nothing even if she were body-free.

,`A live burial?" Fists shot up. Many. Many.

What was burial?

Hands still held her. But. now some who surrounded her bent over, their spade like hands scooping up earth and patting it into pellets. They placed these at the rim of a depression they made. The giberels hummed small sad music.

The cold voice said over it, "Much treachery lurks in mother love. A barren woman craved this death-morsel. Her craving drew her to the House Where Stars Are Worshiped."

Another added, "Malformed plasma, evilly begotten, is brought there. They hold it for adoption, for sacrifice, for whatever they sense to be the Will of the Stars. A barren giberel found this girl-child-'

A shriek tore the night. The pressure on Aramere's body loosened a little. Warm arms wrapped themselves about her-her new mother. Aramere began to sob. I lot tears came to wash all the coldness into the blackest part of the night.