"James Tiptree Jr. - Your Haploid Heart" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tiptree James Jr)

poison waterholes. Ian, they're forcing the Flenn into those shantytowns where
they can keep them under their thumbs. And I believe they spread that
sickness, they don't cure it. They're trying to kill them off. Ian, it's what
you said. Genocide!" Our guides, hearing the word "Esthaan", had turned their
now unveiled heads to us. It was my first look at young Ftenni males. Handsome
was no word for the intensity of life in their proud beaked faces, their
brilliant eyes and fine nostrils and lips. They had male beauty, and something
more -virility that blazed and yet was somehow vulnerable. I knew I was seeing
human males of a quality none had seen before. Involuntarily I bowed my head
to acknowledge their gaze. They returned my bow and looked away, their
profiles pure and grave against the mountains. "Pax, it's not-" I began, when
my mount careened forward under a Flenn whiplash and we were racing pell-mell
for a clump of scrub. Behind us arose a soft unearthly hooting. I got a
glimpse of a golden contraption about fifty feet up and coming fast. We
careened on. Pax was fighting his mount. A black smoke began belching from the
flier's nose. Pax flung himself to the ground as I was swept into the copse.
There was a roar and a confused crashing, and the Flenni had dragged me off
and were covering my head. For several heartbeats nothing happened. I got an
eye free. The black stuff was blowing past us. The gasbag flier was down on
one side and the pilot was struggling out with a gun in one hand. Pax was
somewhere in the smoke. The gas was making me slightly dizzy, but the Flenni
were out cold. I fumbled around in my swaddling and found the pistol still in
my bundle. The second shot got the pilot's wrist, and then Pax stumbled out of
the smoke and fell on him. We had the pilot nicely trussed up when our Flenni
revived. There was a little difficulty in making them understand that I wanted
him alive, and they threw him behind my saddle with the controlled disdain one
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shows to a dog who rolls in dead fish. They were enthusiastic about helping
Pax rip out the flier's transmitter and load it on. We rode on in silence. My
captive's face was in rictus and his eyes were rolled up. I reflected on the
curious difference in the hate shown by Esthaan and Flenn. Why was it the big,
victorious Esthaans who panicked like cornered rats? In twenty years of
strange and often pitiable cases I had seen nothing sadder. Pax was outlining
his plan. He had, it seemed, worked up his field kit into a transmitter, which
with the flier's power packs, should be able to contact MacDorra when the
freighter came near. "What makes you think MacDorra will rescue us?" I asked
him. "We're both under murder charges. MacDorra won't offend a planetary
customer. And he'd let his mother drown rather than pay for cleaning his dress
uniform, you know that. The most he will do is slow-signal the Sector
HQ-collect-for instructions ... the very most." "It's not a question of
rescuing| us!" Pax told me indignantly. "I'm going to see the Flenni get
justice. I want MacDorra to send an emergency message to Gal Fedg charging the
Esthaans with genocide and asking for intervention. The Flenni are human
beings, Ian-I don't know what the Esthaans are, but I'm not going to stand by
and watch humans wiped out by| some kind of things!" "Justice?" I asked
weakly. "Genocide?" It was all my fault, but was suddenly too tired. "Not
genocide, Pax," I muttered and blacked out in my saddle. The image of the girl