"Miller,.Steve.And.Lee,.Sharon.-.Liaden.Universe.03.-.Adventures.In.The.Liaden.Universe.v1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Miller Steve)

It is dangerous to approach the young of an isolate and perhaps
xenophobic people—or, indeed, of any people. But Val Con’s
observations indicated that he could easily outrun the adult, should
it attempt an attack, and children are often curious...

So thinking, he walked down into the valley and sat atop the flat
rock.

The guardian glanced his way, but turned its back, making no move
to herd the smaller ones away. Encouraged, he crossed his legs
and settled in to watch.

They were definitely children. They played tag, fell on each other,
crowed loudly and shouted shrill, unintelligible taunts. Entertaining,
but not particularly productive. The guardian still ignored him, and
he nurtured a small flame of optimism as he felt in the belt for the
stick-knife.

Best to put waiting to work, he thought, quoting one of his uncle’s
favorite phrases. Slowly, attention mostly on the schoolroom party,
he began to fashion the reed into a flute.

It was the first time he’d attempted such a thing, though he had
read how it might be done, and he did not give it primary
concentration. This may have accounted for the woefully off-key
sound that emerged when he finally brought the flute to his lips and
blew.

He winced, and blew again; moving his fingers over the holes to
produce a ripple of ragged sound. His fourth attempt yielded
something that could charitably have been called a tune, and he
glanced up to see how the nursery was taking the diversion.

The guardian stood yet with its back to him, watching as three of
the babies enjoyed a rough-and-tumble of wonderful ineptitude.

The fourth was looking at him.

Val Con brought the reed up and blew again, trying for the simple
line of a rhyming game from his own childhood. The child took a
step forward, away from its quarreling kin, toward the rock. Val Con
repeated the rhyming song and began a hopeless rendition of the
first ballad he had learned on the ’chora.

Fortunately, the baby was not critical. Val Con abandoned the
attempt to wring structured music from his instrument and instead
created ripples of notes, interlocking them as it occurred to him;
playing with the sound.