"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Chimera" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

"That vase better be in its usual position, Cedric," Anna said. "If I hear it
crash in the next fifteen minutes, I'm going to blame you."

The cat ignored her, continuing to stare at Gen. This was the creature she had
seen in the dining room. Still, Anna's comment made little sense. Gen gave her
a perplexed look.

"Cedric sets traps for the other animals, so that they get blamed if something
goes wrong. It pleases and entertains him." Anna frowned at him. "It annoys
me."

Cedric tilted his face upward, holding Gen's gaze. He had a majestic bearing,
a large ruff that made her think of a lion, and his features were classically
feline. Yet there was something in his eyes she had never seen in a cat
before, something measuring, something analytical.

"Dr. Prichard wanted you to have Sadie," Anna said, putting a hand carelessly
on Cedric's head as she passed him. She crouched by the dog near the stove,
and scratched her ears.

A dog. Gen's stomach clenched. She had never liked dogs. They were too
boisterous and noisy, too needy and demanding. Although this one, enhanced as
it was, might be different.

The dog, a tan Collie mix that was medium size, opened her brown eyes. They
gazed up at Gen with such profound sadness that Gen's breath caught in her
throat.

"Sadie had a single pup the year before she left the lab. She was raising it
slowly, carefully, treating it as an infant long after any other dog would.
The pup was taken from her at six months, sold to another lab that wanted to
run experiments on second-generation chimera to see how much human DNA was in
their systems. Sadie hasn't been the same since. Moaning, howling, throwing
herself at doors. Then, when the director couldn't stand it any more, he
called me. If I hadn't taken her, he would have put her down."

Anna said all of this in a dispassionate tone, as if outrage had long since
left her emotional repertoire. The public might not know how the Chimera
Mission felt about the treatment of chimera, but Gen thought it easy to know
how Anna felt. She clearly hated it.

Gen crouched and extended her hand. Most dogs would have sniffed her fingers,
and then licked them, but Sadie didn't. She gave Gen a long sorrowful look.
The dog had lost a child and was miserable. Gen had lost a child and was
miserable. What a pair they would make.
"I—" Gen stopped herself. She wasn't sure how much the dog understood. "I
don't think this is a good idea."

"Sadie is a good dog," Anna said. "She was used in pregnancy tests mostly, so