"Jody Lynn Nye - Medecine Show" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nye Jody Lynn)

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 Jody Lynn Nye - Medicine Show


Lani grabbed Shona's shoulders as her foster mother slipped and landed on her rump.
"Ow!" Shona clutched the restraining straps of the empty chair as she clambered to her knees. "That
hurt."
"One must making it stop!"
The cry came from underneath Shona's examination table in the center of the room. She let go of the
straps and wriggled forward on her belly. Bracing herself with one arm on the table leg, she fished
underneath with the other hand. It emerged grasping a fistful of black-brown ottle fur. The ottle,
protesting, came with it.
The humans who discovered their first sentient alien neigh-bors described the creatures as possessing a
muscular, oval, almost disklike body that was flexible to an extreme, quadru-pedal with the pair of
extremities nearest the small, round-eared head having opposable digits capable of sophisticated
manipulation. The tail, though of no great length, was strong, and used by the littoral creature to aid in
water propulsion. In fact, it looked rather like an Earth turtle crossed with an otter, hence the term
"ottle." In an effort to promote understanding of them among humankind and learn more about their new
friends, several ottles had volunteered to leave their homeworld of Poxt and live among humanity. These
volunteers were to be returned upon demand to their home planet, but in the meantime would be free to
observe humanity and teach their hosts about their species and culture. Shona had submitted an
application to have one of the ottle ambassadors come to stay with her. To her delight, she'd been
approved. Chirwl had been with her now for over seven years, but had lately decided that he wanted to
return to his homeworld. Shona greatly regretted that their long and warm association was shortly
coming to an end.
The small alien permitted himself to be hauled by his scruff over to the impact seats. He turned his
bright black eyes longingly toward the limp leather pouch that was his sleeping bag, hung high on the
wall next to the baby carrier. Shona clutched him tightly to her middle and pulled the shock webbing
around them both.
"I am being after not trusting the other machine—urk!" Chirwl squeaked as the belts and webbing
tightened. Harry the cat wailed in sympathy.
"Neither are we," Shona said. "It's the laser. I never trust anyone who shoots at me."
"Why does not the Sibyl it tell to go away? They are of the same species."
"Stop talking," Shona said, angling her head away from his. "Your whiskers tickle. Anyhow, ships can't
talk to each other. They're non-sentient."


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 Jody Lynn Nye - Medicine Show


"Mama!" Alex called, stretching out his arms to her over the lip of protective padding. "Mama, down!"
"No, sweetie," Shona said in as calm a voice as she could muster. "Not yet. You stay up there for a while
where it's safe."
"Down, now!"
"No ID," Ivo's voice said over the intercom. "They discon-nected the black box. We should've done that,
too."
No black box. Shona fought the chill of fear that rolled down her spine. A spaceship engine could not
legally be manufac-tured without the identifying chip that broadcast its identity to any receiver, and did
not function without it, unless the chip was bypassed in an illicit shipyard. In some security-conscious