"Thomas Easton - Organic Future 04 - Seeds of Destiny" - читать интересную книгу автора (Easton Thomas A)

opening to other roads above the bluffs, outside the valley. Narrower ones led to warrens that had once
sheltered Racs from war. Now they were storehouses and parking garages for the local citizenry's
vehicles.
The forest atop the bluffs was gone. Once small villages had been scattered among the trees. Brush
and thatch construction had given way to wood and stone. Farms and workshops had appeared. The
population had grown, and the valley floor had remained empty, holy ground occupied only by the
Worldtree and the ruins of the first Temple, used only for worship, for picking mossberries, and for
battles between tribes and nations that craved possession of the Worldtree. Until...
Dotson Barbtail trembled in the honeysuckle thicket. His pelt kept him from noticing the chill of the
mid-autumn night, but his ears alternately pricked alert and flattened against his head. His voice sang with
tension in his throat. Quiet, he thought. Quiet. Don't move. Don't make the vines shake. Don't let anyone
see you. And thank your Gypsy Remakers that it is not cold enough to turn your breath to clouds of
steam.
The pedestrian whose presence on the gravel path had made him freeze passed by obliviously. No
others were in sight, which was as it should be. It was late at night, halfway between dusk and dawn, and
every good Rac in the valley should be in bed.
Except for late-working scholars.
He shifted just enough to watch the pedestrian grow distant on the path. Did he have a tail? Was he a
scholar? Or a tailless servant?
Those were the choices, weren't they? Everyone in bed but late workers, scholars and servants. And
rogues like Dotson Barbtail.
Was he really a rogue?
One hand touched the traditional leather harness that crossed his shoulders and chest and circled his
waist. It supported several small pouches for trinkets, money, tools. One held a key.
Rogue. When he had been small, they had called him that. His mother had cuffed him twice for every
one she gave his brothers and sisters. Teachers had scolded and punished. Neighbors had looked at him,
and their voices had changed from the roughness of contentment to the smooth song of anger.
Perhaps he had just had too much initiative. Been too ready to act, too slow to anticipate costs and
consequences.
But he had also been smart. He had known how to learn quickly and well, and he had qualified to be a
student at Worldtree Center. Now he tried to be as much a scholar as anyone. It was a life he loved.
Why, he didn't really have to hide in the honeysuckle, did he? He was a student, a scholar with
research assignments all his own. He might be working late himself. He could walk the paths as freely as
any other.
But he didn't want to be seen by anyone who might later recall his presence here on this night of all
nights, when...
He wished it were darker. The lights of the city that surrounded the valley made the sky glow. If
someone saw him hiding there, they would have little trouble making out the distinctive color pattern of
his fur. That was what had given him his name.
The Worldtree stood high ahead of him, its silhouette piercing the skyglow. The buildings of Worldtree
Center leaned against its shaft, holding up their peaked roofs, the crenellated walkways for the guards
that had not been needed for a generation, the single high turret from which a stout rope ladder rose and
rose and rose, vanishing from sight in its reach for the Worldtree's distant, precious tip.
He wished he wore an ordinary, undistinguished, anonymous coat. Then, if he were seen, he might
have some hope of escaping unrecognized.
He would have another name too, wouldn't he? No barbtail markings. Just a reputation for getting into
trouble.
He snorted gently, quietly, and eased forward among the honeysuckle vines. Several of the cup-sized
blooms tipped and spilled their sticky nectar on his fur. Their cloying odor filled the air. He wrinkled his
nose and struggled not to sneeze. He promised himself a bath and a brush. Perhaps, when he was done,