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

"Chirwl, you're no help," she said crossly. "I would like to converse on a topic other than our possible
demise at the hands or devices of our determined pursuers. Do you mind?"
"Ah!" Chirwl said, with an apologetic twitch of his whiskers. "I am following. Perhaps to speak on the
beauties of my homeworld which I to look forward am?"
"That would be nice." The small alien settled himself more comfortably amidst the restraining straps on
Shona's lap.
"Of trees and rivers I dream," said the ottle, his soft voice whistling. "One infinitely tall and the other
infinitely long. There do I go between always. Those my friends and I to rest on the bank under sunlight
and speak long about theories and speculations of why that have been passed down through many

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generations and never solved. The rain that falls with a tip-tap-tap on the back of my sleeping pouch
soothes, and the wind sings songs in the branches." The picture he painted was so vivid and beautiful,
Shona was transported away for a moment. She let out a wistful sigh.
"That sounds wonderful."
"I miss weather," Lani said in her small voice. "Even storms."
Suddenly, the ship jumped and juddered, and a vibrating hum ran through the hull plates at their backs.
"Me, too," Shona said, bravely keeping her voice level. "I want to get into the outdoors and breathe non-
recirculated air. It's been more than four months since we were on a planet with atmosphere. I'd like to
walk a mile in one direction without running into walls. Not on a treadmill!"
"There is plenty of long direction," Chirwl said eagerly. "I shall show you the best way to walk, near my
home-place and heart-tree."
"I want to meet your family, Chirwl. Are your parents alive?"
"The generative ones who raised me, yes."
"Generative ones? That doesn't sound… loving, if you know what I mean. Don't you have names for
them like Mama and Dada or something like that?"
Chirwl chittered in his own language. "The deficiencies language of Standard to blame for that. I am
thinking to name otherwise but it does not translate as I would wish. In my tongue one calls these names
to the raising ones." Here Chirwl cooed and whistled a series of distinct, different, and liquid phrases in
his own tongue. "And here are what they are called by loving offspring." He emitted some softer phrases.
Shona attempted to repeat the first series. "I can't say that without whiskers and an overbite," she
admitted. "Weren't there three sounds? Do you have three parents?"
Her voice was swallowed up in a hurricane of noise from the engines and thrusters. The first hard jerk in
the ship's momen-tum threw her head backward against the padding in the jump seat. Alex's cry of
surprise when he too bumped his head added to the cacophony of Saffie's barking and Harry's yowling.
Shona, Chirwl, and Lani huddled together in their midst, silent, listening. The video screen recovered
from the white afterim-age of an explosive blast thrown at them by the other ship, and they heard the
orders barked out by the crew on the bridge. Shona gave up all hope of maintaining a cheery
conversation, and clutched her loved ones to her. She wondered what orders the attackers had been
given. Did they have to bring back the Taylors alive, or just proof of the kills?
The strain of living under constant threat had begun to tell upon Shona. Never knowing whether
something as simple as giving her comm number to a new friend might result in another attempt upon

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