"Michael Stackpole "The Bacta War"" - читать интересную книгу автора

brothers, though Huff tended to keep Jula in his place by referring to the cost
of this item or that and feigning astonishment when Jula said he didn't own one.
Jula, for his part, showed incredible restraint and even resignation over his
brother's lack of manners. Corran shook his head. //1 had a brother and got that
treatment from him, my sister-in-law would be a widow. Jula's responses were
polite, and in some ways his forbearance seemed to bother Huff more than any
direct confrontation would have.
Gavin's mother, Silya, could have been Lanal Dark-
lighter's twin. Her concern for Gavin rolled through every question and comment,
though she managed to avoid tears all but once or twice. In the way she looked
at Gavin, Corran recognized the same expression his mother wore when he
graduated from the Corellian Security Force Academy. Pride and fear-a mother's
dreams and her nightmares-fight for supremacy.
The focus of the gathering quickly became Gavin. He thrilled his cousins and
younger siblings with stories of what he'd seen and done, though Corran noted
that he down-played nearly getting killed on Talasea. That didn't surprise him,
but it was also clear to Corran that Jula had not missed what had gone unsaid.
The specter of Biggs's death formed the foundation for every question and
comment.
And the comparison of Gavin with Biggs fuels the analy-sis of stories he's
telling. There was no doubt that Biggs had been a hero and had acted heroically.
His death at Yavin had allowed Luke Skywalker to blow up the Death Star. His
death marked the extreme danger of the situation and was not unexpected, given
the circumstances. Even so, the situa-tions in which Gavin found himself were no
less perilous, yet he had survived them. To Corran's mind, Gavin's parents had
to be thinking that made him better than Biggs in some unde-finable away, and
for Huff it planted the seeds of doubt about how great his son truly was.
Because he had been an only child born of only children, the Darklighter family
gathering gave Corran a window into a whole different family dynamic. Because
there were so many children among whom things were shared, personal boundaries
and the ideas of ownership were weakened. Younger kids seemed to see every adult
as part of the family, fearlessly climbing into laps or asking permission or
asking for help.
At first this threatened Corran-in part because of the utter chaos of the
situation but mostly because the children thrust responsibility into his hands.
The fact that none of the Darklighters seemed to mind their children paying him
atten-tion-as long as the kids didn't seem to be bothering him or to be
ill-mannered-meant he had to accept that responsibil-
ity and act on it. The openness of the families drew him in and they accepted
him, but Corran was uncertain if he was ready to be accepted.
Mirax and her father, by way of contrast, formed a little insulated party within
the grander goings-on. The hushed tones of their conversation, their quiet
laughter and their gen-eral ease with each other reminded Corran very sharply of
the relationship he'd had with his own father. Hal Horn had been friend and
confidant as well as parent and work associate. Corran had always thought of
family as a place where he could open himself up and get advice without fearing
censure or ridicule. Shared blood meant a bottom-line alliance that no
disagreement could shatter. He and his father had disagreed on plenty of things,
but that which united them was far stronger than anything that could divide
them.