"Robert F. Young - St Julie and the Visgi" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

soil. (Visge soil was restricted to hilltops where the danger of erosion was greatest.) They raked the soil
till it was broken up into fine particles, then they planted Visge grass. They planted it the way the Visgi
had instructed them, thickly so that the long roots would become entangled and lock the soil against the
onslaughts of the rain and the wind. It was late afternoon when they finished, and they got into their truck
and drove down the hill to the village.
That evening Julie sat on the porch steps, staring at the naked yard. She concentrated on the spot
where the tree had stood, memorizing it with her eyes. She sat there long after the sun had set, watching
the shadows creep up the hill. Mother sat behind her on the rocker. Around them in the coalescing
darkness crickets began their chant, and from the marshes at the end of the valley came the dissonant
singing of frogs. Fireflies began to flicker in the dark blurs of bushes on the borders of the yard.
Finally Mother said: "It's time for bed, Julie."
"All right, Mother."
"Would you like a glass of milk?" "No, Mother."
"You must be very hungry. You hardly touched your supper."
"No, Mother. I'm not hungry at all. . . ."

The house was very still, and damp with night. Julie lay very quietly in her bed, pretending sleep. She
lay there for a long while, till Mother's breathing became even and deep, then she got up and tiptoed
down the stairs. She opened the door carefully and walked softly across the porch and down the steps.
The moon was full and the naked yard was silver now.
Julie didn't think they could have noticed the little tree. She was sure that she was the only one in the
world who knew about it. She got her diminutive shovel out of her sand pail and went around to the side
of the house. The tree was still there, growing very close to the foundation, hugging the concrete blocks
as though it was afraid. It was as big around as Julie's little finger, it was a foot high, and it had one leaf.
She dug it up tenderly, then she carried it around the house to the place where the big tree had been.
She planted it carefully, patting the soil around its tendril of a trunk till it stood up straight in the moonlight.
"There," she said when she had finished, "the yard looks much better now."
She tiptoed back to bed.

THE LOCAL administrator trudged up the hill early the next morning. Julie was already up and she
was watering the new tree with her red sprinkling can. Mother was still in bed.
The Visgi didn't trust Terrans. They didn't trust anybody. It was each Visgi administrator's
responsibility to see to it that the inhabitants of the zone which he governed lived up to the letter of the
Visgi edict, and the zones were small enough so that each administrator could personally check the work
of his Terran landscape crew.
The local administrator was typical of his race, both mentally and physically. His face was flat and he
had flat gray eyes. His ears grew flatly against the sides of his head. He was wearing a flat-topped kepi.
When he saw the little tree he stopped dead on his flat feet.
He hated trees. He hated any plant that did not grow on Visge. It was a religious conditioned reflex.
In the beginning the Prime Motivator had created Visge; then He had created the rest of the cosmos. He
had intended that all of the planets should be like Visge, but during the hectic days of the Creation He
had become careless and made them any old way. So as soon as the cosmos was completed He had
created the Visgi and given them the Word to go forth in ships and set the other planets right.
Certainly if He had intended planets to have trees He would have put some on Visge too.
The local administrator strode indignantly across the newly seeded soil and towered ominously over
the little tree. He reached down with one large self-righteous hand. His fingertips had almost touched the
thin trunk before the Thought —as it was later designated in Visgi scripture—struck him. Then something
else struck him. Julie's sprinkling can bounced off his shoulder, showering his face with water. "You leave
my tree alone!" she said.
The local administrator hardly noticed the can or the water. He was down on his hands and knees,