"Chalker, Jack L. - Soul Rider 01 - Spirits of Flux and Anchor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)

slight color shifts to the land showed the beauty
and glory of Heaven and reminded ail humankind
of the Paradise it had lost and could regain, in the
same way as night showed the emptiness of Hell,
the distant, tiny stars representing the lost souls
that might be consumed by darkness if not re-
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Jack L. Chalker - Spirits of Flux and AnchorUC - SR#1
deemed.
After a time she moved on, a lonely little figure
walking back to the only home she'd ever known.
Although the day was pretty, there was a chill in
the air, and she wore a heavy checked flannel shirt
and wool workpants.
Cassie had the kind of face that could be either
male or female, and this, along with her tendency
to keep her black, slightly curly hair clipped extremely
shortЧas well as her slight buildЧoften
got her mistaken for a boy, an error her low, husky
soprano did nothing to correct. She'd been the last
of four children, all girls, and her parents had
really wanted a boy. Particularly her father, a smith
who wanted very much to pass on the family trade
as his father had to him, and his father's father
before that. She had not been spared that knowledge,
and was often reminded of that fact.
Perhaps because of this, or at least in trying to
please them, she'd always been a tomboy, getting
into fights and walking, talking, and now working
with the boys, herding, milking, and even breaking
horses. Tel Anser, the hard old supervisor in
10 Jack L. Chalker
the corral, often held her up as an example to the
boys he worked with, teasing them that she was
far more of a man than any of them. That didn't
win her any popularity contests, of course, but she
didn't really mind. She was proud of the comment.
Still, she was a lonely girl. Partly because of the
way she was, she never got asked to dances, never,
in fact, had even been asked for, let alone been out
on, a single date. Those few boys who did accept
her did so as an equal and a friendЧand that
meant as just one of the boys. It was hard, sometimes,
sitting around and listening to them compare
notes on girls they were attracted to, driving
home by their very indifference to her sex the fact
that she would never be the object of such conversations,
either by them or by others.
Still, the flip side of that never appealed to her
much, either. Perhaps if she'd been pretty, or sexy,