"Alan Dean Foster - Dream Done Green" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

says he comes to see you."
The girl laughed, and silver flute notes skittered off the polished stone
floor.
"To see me? Stranger and stranger. And really alone?" She swung perfect legs
off the balustrade. "What kind of mal is this?"
"A horse, mistress."
The flawless brow wrinkled. "Horse? Well, let's see this strange mal that
travels alone."
They walked toward the foyer, past cages of force filled with rainbow-colored
tropical birds.
"Tell me, Patch . .. what is a 'horse'?"
"A large four-legged vegetarian." The dog's brow twisted with the pain of
remembering. Patch was extremely bright for a dog. ."There are none on Calder.
I do not think there are any in the entire system."
"Off-planet, too?" Her curiosity was definitely piqued, now. "Why come to see
me?"
"I do not know, mistress."
"And without even a human over h—"
Voice and feet stopped together.
The mal standing in the foyer was not as large as some. La Moure's elephants
were much bigger. But it was extraordinary in other ways. Particularly the
head. Why ... it was exquisite! Truly breathtaking. Not an anthropomorphic
beauty, but something uniquely its own.
Patch slipped away quietly.
The horse was black as the Pit, with tiny exceptions. The right front forelock
was silver, as was the diamond on its forehead. And there was a single streak
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WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE . ..
of silver partway through the long mane, and another in the black tail. Most
mal wore only a lifepouch, and this one's was strapped to its neck. But it
also wore an incongruous, utterly absurd hat of green felt, with a long
feather, protruding out and back.
With a start she realized she'd been staring . . . very undignified. She
started toward it again. Now the head swung to watch her. She slowed and
stopped involuntarily, somehow constrained from moving too close.
"This is ridiculous! she thought. It's only a mere mal, and not even very big.
Why, it's even herbivorous!
Then whence this strange fluttering deep in her
tummy?
"You are Casperdan," said the horse suddenly. The voice was exceptional, too:
a mellow tenor that tended to rise on concluding syllables, only to break and
drop like a whitecap on the sea before the next word.
She started to stammer a reply, angrily composed
herself.
"I am. I regret that I'm not familiar with your species, but I'll accept
whatever the standard horse-man greeting is."
"I give no subservient greeting to any man," replied the horse. It shifted a
hoof on the floor, which here was deep foam.
A stranger and insolent to boot, thought Casperdan furiously. She would call
Patch and the household guards and . . . Her anger dissolved in confusion and