"Sheri S. Tepper - The Song of Mavin Manyshaped" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tepper Sherri)

there a century hence, still squirming, unmistakably Mavin's toes. After a long time of this, she brought
her toes back to a length which would fit her shoes and put them on, standing up to smooth her apron and
noticing for the first time the distant surveillance offered by the two granders on the citadel high porch.
She made a little face, as she had seen Handbright do, remotely aware of what the two old things usually
chatted about but still not making any connection between that and herself. She was off to tell
Handbright about her toes, and there was room for nothing else in her head at the moment, though she
knew at the edges of her consciousness the oldsters had been talking man-woman stuff.
But then everyone was into man-woman stuff that year. Some years it was fur, and some years it was
feathers. Some years it was vegetable-seeming which was the fad, and other years no one cared for
anything except jewels. This year was sex form changing, and it was somewhat titillating for the
children, seeing their elder relatives twisting themselves into odd contorted shapes with nerve ends
pushed out or tucked in in all sorts of original ways. Despite the fact that shifters had no feeling of shame
over certain parts—those parts being changed day to day in suchwise that little of the original topography
could still be attached to them—the younglings who had not become shifters yet were tied to old, non-
shifter forebear emotions which had to do with the intimate connections between things excretory and
things erotic. It could not be helped. It was in the body shape they were born with and in the language
and in the old stories children were told, and in the things all children did and thought and said, ancient
as apes and true as time. So the children, looking upon all this changing about, found a kind of giggly
prurience in it despite the fact that they were shifter children every one, or hoped they were soon to be.
All this lewd, itchy stuff to do with man and woman made Mavin uncomfortable in a deep troublesome
way. It was by no means maidenly modesty, which at one time it would have been called. It was a deeper
thing than that—a feeling that something indecent was being done. The same feeling she had when she
saw boys pulling the wings off zip-birds and taunting them as they flopped in the dust, trying, trying,
trying to fly. It was that same sick feeling, and since it seemed to be part and parcel of being shifter,
Mavin decided she wouldn't tell anyone except Handbright she was shifter, not just yet.
Instead, she smoothed her apron, pointedly ignored the speculative stares of old Graywing and Haribald,
and walked around the line of slything pillars to a she-door. At noon would be a catechism class, and
though Mavin made it a practice to avoid many things which went on in Danderbat keep, it was not wise
to avoid those. Particularly inasmuch as Handbright was teaching it and Mavin's absence could not pass
unnoticed. Since she was the only girl, it would not pass unnoticed no matter who was teaching, but she
did not need to remind herself of that.
Almost everyone was there when she arrived, so she slipped into a seat at the side of the room, attracting
little attention. Some of the boys were beginning to practice shifter sign, vying with one another who
could grow the most hair on the backs of their hands and arms, who could give the best boneless wriggle
in the manner of the Danderbats. Handbright told them once to pay attention, then struck hard at the
offending arms with her rod, at which all recoiled but Tolerable Tit-dance, who had grown shell over his
arms in the split second it had taken Handbright to hit at him. He laughed in delight, and Handbright
smiled a tired little smile at him. It was always good to see a boy so quick, and she ruffled his hair and
whispered in his ear to make him blush red and settle down.
"I'm nye finished with you bunch," said Handbright, making her hair stand out from her head in a tangly
bush which wriggled like a million little vines. "You're all coming along in one talent or another. I have
to tell you today that it looks like Leggy Bartiban will be going off to Schooltown to be fostered. Seems

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Sh...-%20The%20Song%20of%20Mavin%20Manyshaped.htm (3 of 84) [10/18/2004 3:28:05 PM]
 THE SONG OF MAVIN MANYSHAPED - Sheri S. Tepper

he's showing signs of being Tragamor. Not unexpected, eh Leggy?"
The boy ducked his head, tried to smile through what were suspiciously like tears. True, it wasn't
unexpected. His father had been a Tragamor, able to move great boulders or pull down mountains by just
looking at them, but it was still hard for him to accept that he must forget the shifters, forget the