"Andre Norton - Astra 01 - The Stars Are Ours!" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

"Tonight?" He asked only that as he sawed away at the wood-like meat.

"I don't know."

And at the tone of his brother's answer Dard dropped the dull knife to turn and watch Lars' face. There was a new light in the man's eyes, a brightness about him that his younger brother had never seen since Dessie's mother had died two years before.

"You've finished," Dard said slowly, hardly daring to believe what might be true, that they might be free!

"I've finished. They'll pass the word and then we'll be sent for."

"'Honey," Dard called to Dessie, "bring in the pine cones. We'll have a big fire tonight."

As she scampered toward the shed Dard spoke over her head.

"There's a heavy snow on the way, Lars."

"So?" the man at the table did not appear worried.

"Well, snow's never stopped them from coming before." He was relaxed, at peace.

Dard was silent but his eyes flickered beyond Lars' shoulder to the objects leaning against the wall. They were never mentioned, those crutches. But in deep snow! Lars never went outside in winter, he couldn't! How could they get away unless the mysterious others had a horse or horses. But perhaps they did. That was always his greatest fault- worrying over the future--borrowing trouble ahead, as if they didn't have enough already to go around!

Dessie was back to feed the fire slowly one cone at a time. Dard scraped the meat slivers into the iron pot and added a shriveled potato carefully diced. Then he grew reckless and wrenched off the lid of a can to pour its treasured contents to thicken the water. If they were going away they'd need feeding up to make the trip and there would be little sense in hoarding supplies they could not carry with them.

"Birthday?" Dessie watched this move in wide-eyed surprise. "But my birthday's in the summer, and Daddy's was last month, and yours," she counted on her fingers, "is not for a long time yet, Dardie."

"Not a birthday. Just a celebration. Get the spoon, Dessie, and stir this carefully."

"'Celebration," she considered the new word thoughtfully. "I like celebrations. You going to make tea, too, Dardie? Why, this is just like a birthday!"

Dard shook the dried leaves out on the palm of his hand Their aromatic fragrance reached him faintly. Mint, green and cool under the sun. He sensed that he was different from Lars-colors, scents, certain sounds meant more to him. Just as Dessie was different in her way-in her ability to make friends with birds and animals. He had seen her last summer, sitting perfectly still on the wall, two birds on her shoulders and a squirrel nuzzling her hand.

But Lars had gifts, too. Only he had been taught to use them. Dard shook the last crumbling leaf from his hand into the pot and wondered for the thousandth time what it would have been like to live in the old days when the Free Scientists had the right to teach and learn and experiment. It probably had been another kind of world altogether-the one which existed before the Big Burning, before Renzi had preached the Great Peace.

All he could remember of his early childhood in those days was a vague happiness. The purge had come when he was eight and Lars twenty-five, and after that things simply got worse and worse. Of course, they'd been lucky to survive the purge at all belonging to a Scientific family. But their escape had left Lars a twisted cripple. He and Lars and Kathia had come here. But Kathia was different--she forgot everything, mercifully. And after Dessie had been born five months later it had been like caring for two babies at once. Kathia had been sweet and obedient and lovely, but she lived in her own dream world and neither of them had ever tried to bring her out of it. Seven, almost eight years now, they bad been here. But in all that time Dard had never quite dared to believe they were safe. He lived always on the ragged edge of fear. Maybe Kathia had been the luckiest one of all.

He took over the stirring of the stew and Dessie set the table, putting out the three wooden spoons, the battered crockery howl, the tin basin and the single chipped soup dish, the two tin cups and the graceful fluted china one which had been Dessie's last birthday gift after he had found it hidden on a rafter out in the barn.

"Smells grand, Dard. You're a good cook, son." Lars offered praise.

Dessie bobbed her head in agreement until her two pencil-thick braids flopped up and down on shoulders where the blades, as she moved, took on the angular outlines of wings. "I like celebrations!" She announced. "Tonight may we play the word game?"

"We certainly shall!" Lars returned with emphatic promptness.

Dard did not pause in his stirring though he was alert to every inflection in Lars' voice. Did he read a special significance into that last answer? Why did Lars want to play the word game? And why did he himself feel this aroused wariness--as if they were secure in a den while out in the dark danger prowled!

"I have a new one, Dessie went on. "It sings-"

She put her hands down on the table on either side of her soup plate and tapped her little broken nails in time to the words she recited: