"James Alan Gardner - League of Peoples 07 - Radiant" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gardner James Alan)

Seven days after I was born, my mother named me "Ugly Screaming Stink-Girl."

Such birth names were common on my homeworld—a planet called Anicca, first colonized by Earthlings
of Bamar extraction. Wisewomen swore if you gave your babies unpleasant names, demons would leave
the children alone. In Bamar folktales, demons were always gullible; a name like "Ugly Screaming
Stink-Girl" would fool them into thinking the baby was so flawed and worthless, there was no point
hurting her. Why bother making her sick or nudging her in front of a speeding skimmer? She was already
an Ugly Screaming Stink-Girl.

Years later, when I'd learned the proper chants to protect against demons, I was allowed to choose a
new name. It happened during the spring festival: girls and boys, nine years old, giggled with their first
taste of adulthood as they officially discarded their baby names. We wrote our awful old names on bright
red pieces of paper, then threw the papers into a ceremonial fire.

Bye-bye, Ugly Screaming Stink-Girl. Unless, of course, the name stayed stuck in everyone's mind.

Most of the other nine-year-olds immediately announced what new names they were taking. Only a few
of us couldn't decide. We tried a succession of different names, switching every few days: trying this,
trying that, until we found one that made everyone forget we'd ever been called anything else.

Or until we realized we'd always be Ugly Screaming Stink-Girl, and it was time to stop pretending
otherwise. Just pick a name at random and stick with it.

I picked the name Youn Suu. Simple, meaningless, easy to pronounce: like Yune Sue. But it was a label
of convenience, nothing more. Like wearing a particular shirt, not because it was comfortable or
good-looking, but because it didn't have obvious rips or stains. I didn't feel like a Youn Suu, but I didn't
feel like anyone else either. Just a barefoot girl, anonymous.

Part of me still fantasized I'd find agood name—a name that wasme —but I tried not to think such
thoughts. The Buddha taught that wishful fixations were "unskillful." Wise people lived life as it was, rather
than frittering away their energies on pointless daydreams. My actions counted; my name didn't.

So I became Youn Suu.

Until I left Anicca, people called meMa Youn Suu... "Ma" being the polite form of address for an
undistinguished young female. Women of high prestige and venerable old grannies warranted a better title:
the honorific "Daw." But I was sure I'd never be Daw Youn Suu. I'd never win prestige, and I wouldn't
live long enough to become venerable. I'd die young and unimportant, because by the age of nineteen my
full name had become Explorer Third Class Ma Youn Suu of the Technocracy's Outward Fleet.

At least, that's what it said on the ID chip burned into the base of my spine. In my heart, I was still Ugly
Screaming Stink-Girl.



My ugliness had a story. My life had no room for other stories—no "How I Won a Trophy" or "My First
Real Kiss"—because all my potential for stories came down to "Youn Suu Was Ugly, and Nothing Else
Mattered."

Like all stories, the tale of my ugliness had long roots. Longer than I'd been alive. The Bamar are a