"Baxter, Stephen - Huddle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Baxter Stephen)

But they -- the people of the ice -- survived all this in a deep hole in the
ground, No-Sun said. They had been given a privileged shelter, and a mission: to
help others, less fortunate, after the calamity.

They had spilled out of their hole in the ground, ready to help.

Most had frozen to death, immediately.

They had food, from their hole, but it did not last long; they had tools to help
them survive, but they broke and wore out and shattered. People were forced to
dig with their teeth in the ice, as Night-Dawn did now.

Their problems did not end with hunger and cold. The thinness of the air made
the sun into a new enemy.

Many babies were born changed. Most died. But some survived, better suited to
the cold. Hearts accelerated, life shortened. People changed, molded like slush
in the warm palm of the sun.

Night-Dawn was intrigued by the story. But that was all it was: a story,
irrelevant to Night-Dawn's world, which was a plain of rock, a frozen pond of
ice, people scraping for sparse mouthfuls of food. How, why, when: the time for
such questions, on the blasted face of Earth, had passed.

And yet they troubled Night-Dark, as he huddled with the others, half-asleep.

One day -- in the water, with the soft back fur of Frazil pressed against his
chest -- he felt something stir beneath his belly. He wriggled experimentally,
rubbing the bump against the girl.

She moved away, muttering. But she looked back at him, and he thought she
smiled. Her fur was indeed sleek and perfect.

He showed his erection to his mother. She inspected it gravely; it stuck out of
his fur like a splinter of ice.

"Soon you will have a choice to make."

"What choice?"

But she would not reply. She waddled away and dropped into the water.

The erection faded after a while, but it came back. More and more frequently, in
fact.

He showed it to Frazil.

Her fur ruffled up into a ball. "It's small," she said dubiously. "Do you know
what to do?"