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

I was born an adequate physical specimen. Small but strong. Thin but not scrawny. By my teen years, I
excelled at five forms of solo dance. I even performed, to great acclaim... at least in Anicca's yein pwe
dances, where all the dancers wore masks.

I had to wear a mask because I wasnot born adequately beautiful. My hair was black and lustrous, my
skin resembled feather-soft silk, and my body had tastefully generous curves. But I was still an Ugly
Screaming Stink-Girl.

Sometime before birth, the yellow-white pigments intended to adorn my face congealed into a single
palm-sized blob glaring from my left cheek. A leprous puckered livid spongelike weeping mass of tissue.
 Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html




Mostly, it wept a thin, oily ooze. If I told gawking strangers the fluid was just sweat, they said they
believed me. But itwasn't sweat. I obsessively studied biochemistry till I could determine the fluid's exact
chemical composition... then obsessively fell into the habit of listing those chemicals under my breath,
reciting their names like a chant that could drive away demons. (I'd recite them for you now, but I've
given up being neurotic.)

The fluid from my cheek stank of gangrenous pus. At least it did to me. Others assured me they couldn't
smell a thing, so perhaps I just imagined the stench. A psychosomatic olfactory delusion. It's possible.

It's also possible people were lying when they said there was no putrid reek of necrosis. I accused them
of that many times, shrieking, "Admit it, admit it, admit it!"

As I've said, I was more emotional back then. Subject to outbursts.

Occasionally, when I was under stress or drank too much caffeine, my cheek wept blood. I still told
people the fluid was sweat; then I glared, daring anyone to contradict me.

Few did.



Inevitably, my face drew the attention of the Explorer Corps. Explorers are "brave
volunteers"—draftees—whom the navy sends into unknown situations. Or into known situations that are
too damned dangerous for unblemished personnel.

Explorers are expendable. If someone has to die, let it be an Ugly Screaming Stink-Girl. Otherwise,
there might be repercussions. Measurable drops in morale and productivity.

In Explorer Academy, we were forced to read studies that showed just how badly navy personnel
reacted to the death of normal or attractive-looking crew members. Performance ratings plummeted;
clinical depression became rampant; people on duty made serious mistakes from shock and grief. Why?
Because modern society resembles a character from Bamar sacred stories... a young prince named
Gotama. The prince was brought up by his royal father in a luxurious pleasure palace where he was kept
unaware of old age, disease, and death. He grew up knowing only the joys of his harem, and parties and