"Andre Norton - Star Ka'at 01 - Star Ka'at" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

without enough food for days, and had a certain air of wildness. A very
good job of make-up, Tiro thought. Mer could slink through alleys and
creep into places in this tiresome city where a

Ka'at of his own fine appearance would be marked instantly, even by a
short-sighted human.

"You have the orders. Two days to establish yourself, then a meeting."

"I shall take the 'girl'."

Tiro could not believe he had caught that thought clearly.

"Someone like her has no value, sister. You will only waste valuable
time." He tried not to show the irritation he felt.

"Brother, I have done as we were bid. There are those in the hide-life
holes she comes from who are true kin. I have already marked them; why
else am I here? She came—I followed."

Tiro licked once more at his breast fur. It was for Mer to choose, and if
she chose wrongly she would face the penalty. Again he half expected her
to answer his thought. But when he looked up again she was gone. So at
least she would follow rules and make contact with her chosen "child" at a
distance.

He listened to the voices and sounds in the cellar below and settled
himself to await Jim's return. Only his surface thoughts were engaged
with the boy. He was really considering other, darker knowledge that had
brought him to what all the ancient records of his own race proclaimed
was the most violent and unhappy of worlds.




2
Tiro, Mer and Problems
"No, we can't keep that stray in the house, Jim."

"Tiro's no stray! Somebody must have lost him. Look at him, will you,
just look at him? He's no stray out of the alley."

Tiro held close in Jim's arms, his white-tipped paws on the boy's
shoulders, gave one of his deepest rumbles. But the eyes he turned on Mrs.
Dale were not particularly friendly. It did not really matter so much if
these humans took him in or not. If he did not have this odd liking—yes,
liking—for the boy, he would have been off and out of the house when this
wrangle first started.

Jim's face flushed. Tiro was the only thing he had really wanted since