"Piper, H Beam - Fuzzy 3 - Other People" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piper H Beam)

now they called him Toshi-Sosso—Wise One, One Who Knows
Best—and they all did as he advised.

They had begun doing that when Old One had "made dead." Old
One had been a female; Little She, who walked beside him now,
was her daughter, one of the very few Gashta who had been born
alive and lived more than very briefly, It was Little She who saw the
redberry bush even before he did, and cried out in surprise:
"Look, redberries! Not finish yet; good to eat!"

It was late to find redberries; mostly they were brown and hard
now, and not good. There would be no more for a long time, until
after new-leaf time and birdnesting time. In the meantime, though,
there would be other good-to-eat things; soon, on a tree they all
knew, would be big brown nuts, and when the shells were cracked
they would be soft and good inside. He looked forward to eating
them, but he wondered why all the good-to-eat things couldn't be at
the same time. It would be nice if they could, but that was how
things had always been.

They crowded around the bush, careful to avoid the sharp thorns,
picking berries and popping them into their mouths and spitting out
the seeds, laughing and talking about how good they were and how
nice it was to find them so late. Some of the younger ones forgot,
in their excitement, to keep watch. He rebuked them;
"Keep watch, all time; look around, listen. You not watch,
something come, eat you."

Really, there was no danger. None of the animals they had cause
to fear were about, and none of them could hear the voices of
People. Still, one must never forget to watch. Not remembering
was how one made dead.

It wasn't fun, being Wise One. The others expected him to do all
the thinking for them. That was not good.

Suppose he made dead some time; who would think for them
then? After they had eaten all the berries, they stood waiting for
him to tell them what to do next.

"What we do now?" he asked them. "Where go?"

They all looked at him, wondering. Finally Other She, who had
joined the band between bird-nesting time and groundberry time,
before last leaf-turning time, said:
"Hunt for zatku. Maybe find zatku for everybody."

She meant, a whole zatku for each of them. They wouldn't; there
weren't that many zatku. The day before yesterday, they had found
two, only a few bites apiece. Besides, they would find none here