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

The baby was right in front of him.

He let the music fade slowly; raised his head and looked into
enormous golden eyes, pupils cat-slit black; let his lips curve into
the slightest of smiles, and waited.

“D’neschopita,” announced the child, extending a three-fingered
hand.

“D’neschopita,” repeated the Scout, copying inflection and pitch.
He extended his own hand, many-fingered as it was.

A hand larger than either swooped out of nowhere, snatching the
child from imminent contact, sparing for his abductor one withering
glare from eyes the size of dinner plates. It dragged the protesting
infant away, holding forth in a loud and extremely displeased voice.

Nurse, Val Con decided, shoulders drooping. Don’t touch that, he
translated freely, giving his imagination rein, you don’t know where
it’s been! It could be sick! Whatever it is. And look how SOFT it is!
Probably slimy, too. Yuck.

He raised the flute and blew a bleat of raucous wet sound.

The big one spun, moving rather more rapidly observed in others
of her race, dropping the baby’s hand and raising her arms.

Val Con grinned at her. “D’neschopita,” he said.

She hesitated; lowered her arms slowly—and spun again,
reclaiming her charge roughly and driving the other three before,
toward the safety of the center valley.

“TO CONCLUDE,” intoned the Speaker for the Trader Clan,
“White Marsh feels that the Knife Clan of Middle River owes in the
form of information regarding routes of star-trade. This, because
the Knife Clan neglected to locate the being known as Silver Mark
Sweeney and deliver the knife he commissioned, thereby denying
the Trader Clan its fee of information, for sending this business
hither.”

There was silence as the T’car digested the whole of the Trader
Clan’s message. Out of the silence, Eldest Speaker’s dead-leaf
voice: “Will you make answer, T’carais?”

The person so addressed stood away from the bench and inclined
his head to the Elders in respect.

“It grieves me,” he began, “that the Trader clan of White Marsh
would come before the T’car entire, citing wrongs, before they