"C. J. Cherryh - Chanur 05 - Chanur's Legacy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cherryh C J)

Not friends. A clan with whom they had a centuries-old, formally filed feud.

Thank you, gods. Penance for mercy indeed.

"I'll see him."

She solved the translator's problem, let it run and read until she heard the hatch cycle. Then she leaned over and killed displays, swung the chair around toward the door.

Boy, she had said. So many were, that had gone to space. But he was older than that. He had his full growth-at least in height; had to duck his head coming through the door. His shoulders were wide enough to put the consoles in jeopardy. Handsome lad-a statue had to notice: and a spacer crew months out on a run was going to notice. Shy, scared, all those things a young man might be, dropped in the midst of a strange clan, and him in the wrong-it took a moment before he decided he had to look at her.

"Na Meras. Welcome aboard."
"Thank you, ker Chanur. I'm very grateful to be here."

"I don't doubt. I hesitate to ask why your ship found it necessary to leave."

"I don't know, ker Chanur."

"Captain will do. And don't you?"

Ears lowered. The boy found a spot on the deck of interest. "I don't remember what I did. They say I broke some pottery. And hit a kifish gentleman."

"A kifish gentleman." The boy was delicately bred.

"I don't remember that part," he said. Add new to drink and bars.
"You weren't in communication with your ship."

"No, captain."

"Not since?"

"No, captain."

"And you've no notion why your captain suffered a lapse of memory either."

"No, captain."

"Na Meras, that answer could get very tiresome over the next several months. Possibly even by tomorrow."

"I'm sorry, captain."

"What's your name, na Meras?"
A glance up, ears half-lifted. "Hallan, captain. From Syrsyn. -I-I met your aunt once, on Anuurn dock. And ker Haral ..."

Her ears went down. She remembered a dockside, at Anuurn, too, a parting with the crew. A handful of bitter words.

There was absolute adoration on the boy's face-not, she was sure, cultivated on any Sahern ship. And sensitivity enough to realize he had just trod on dangerous ground. Bewilderment ... confusion. He had the sense to shut up, give him that.
"Are you married in Sahern, lateral kin, ... what's the relationship?'' It was a measure of how often and how long she had been downworld that she did not track the lineages any longer. He could be related to the Holy Personage of Me'gohti-as for all she knew.

"No relation," he said, managing to locate that spot on the deck again.
So a tasteful person would stop asking. Look at the boy. Figure a kid wanted a berth. And Sahern gave him one.