"Michael Stackpole "Rogue Squadron"" - читать интересную книгу автора

with."
"That is difficult-my roommate is a Rodian."
"That's rough, but I'll bet she's less idiosyncratic than my roommate." Corran
whistled at the Gand pilot entering the hangar. "Ooryl, come over here, please."
The pilot's grey-green flesh clashed with the bright orange of his flight suit,
and the knobby bits of his exoskeleton poked bumps in odd places from beneath
the fabric as he walked. "May Ooryl assist?"
"I've been curious about something since we were assigned the same quarters, but
didn't think to ask you about it until right now." Corran frowned. "I hope you
don't mind-you might take it person-ally and I don't mean to embarrass you."
The Gand just watched him with multifaceted eyes. "Qyrgg would hope to avoid
embarrassment as well, but you may ask."
Corran nodded in what he hoped was a friendly manner. "Why do you speak of
yourself in the third person?"
"Qrygg is embarrassed by not understanding your question."
Lujayne smiled. "You do not seem to refer to yourself with the pronoun 'I.' "
"And you alternate the names you use."
The Gand's mouth parts clicked open in what Corran had decided was a Gand's best
approxima-tion of a human smile. "Ooryl understands."
"And?"
Ooryl crossed his arms, then tapped his trio of fingers against his body's
deltoid armor plates. "On Gand it is held that names are important. Any Gand who
has achieved nothing is called Gand. Before Ooryl was given Ooryl's name, Ooryl
was known as Gand. Once Ooryl had made a mark in the world, Ooryl was given the
Qrygg surname. Later, by mas-tering the difficulties of astronavigation and
flight, Ooryl earned the right to be called Ooryl."
The woman frowned. "This still does not explain why you do not use pronouns to
refer to yourself."
"Qrygg apologizes. On Gand only those who have achieved great things are
permitted to use pro-nouns for self-designation. The use of such carries with it
the presumption that all who hear the speech will know who the speaker is, and
this assumption is only true in the case where the speaker is so great, the
speaker's name is known to all."
Corran found the system curious, but somehow satisfying. It always does seem
that those who use I the most are the ones who have the least in the way of
accomplishments to justify it. The Gands have formalized a system we should have
come up with long ago. "So Ooryl is the equivalent of Corran, and Qyrgg is the
same as Horn for me?"
"Exactly."
"Then why do you sometimes refer to your-self by your family name, and sometimes
by your own name?"
The Gand looked down for a moment and his mouth parts closed. "When a Gand has
given of-fense, or is ashamed of actions, this diminishes the gains made in
life. Name reduction is an act of con-trition, an apology. Ooryl would like to
think Ooryl will not often be called Qyrgg, but Qyrgg knows the likelihood of
this is slender."
Whistler tootled jauntily at Corran.
"People would know my first name was Corran even if we did use this system." He
rolled his eyes. "And any droid who wanted to keep his name would have run his
little diagnostic program and told me if the extractor was adjusted correctly or