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

he would go by the lake.
Trouble, he thought. He was who he was, and surely that could not be changed. Not entirely. He had
behaved himself since coming to Worldtree Center. Most of the time.
But he was who he was. Just let him think of something that seemed a good idea to do. It did not
matter whether his elders would approve or not. Better, perhaps, if they would sing with rage when they
found out, and knowing that, or thinking it, he had never been able to leave that good idea alone.
Without his markings, he would surely be known as Dotson Eaten-by-Temptation. Or would he? Sly
Evader might do as well, for the elders caught him far less often than he deserved.
Would they catch him tonight?
He really hoped they would not. He had never before plotted such an awful crime that was theft and
sacrilege and blasphemy and heresy all at once.
It had seemed like a good idea at the time.
It still did.
He squeezed his fingers more tightly about the lump of baked clay in his hand. He had been roaming
the streets of Worldtree City above the bluffs when he had found the potter's workshop. He had lingered
in the door to watch one rotund worker kneading red-brown clay, another making bowls on a spinning
wheel, a third painting glazes in patterns onto dry clay surfaces. He had returned again, and again, and
one day he had found the shop empty. That was when he had stolen a handful of clay. He had shaped it
later, making his lump, heating it in the oven of his apartment stove, hoping that was hot enough, then
painting it with enamels. When he was finished, he was satisfied. It was not a perfect match for what he
had wished to imitate, but it was close. Close enough.
The only question then remaining was whether he would ever have a chance to use it. Would there
ever be a time? Would he ever dare?
Every year the honeysuckle spread, pushing its way into ground long held by the valley's native moss.
Gardeners pushed it back, but still it grew. It even grew outside the valley, spreading across the face of
First-Stop much as had the Racs themselves.
Some Racs thought the honeysuckle should be removed entirely, chopped and burned and dug up by
the roots. The space, they said, could be given back to moss. Or it could be used for more dormitories
or library space. Others said the vines were a relic of their Remakers, the alien strangers who had raised
them from the beasts. They should remain, as much a remembrance and a promise as the Worldtree that
dominated the valley and the Rac culture. So far, the traditionalists had always won.
 Dotson was grateful. The honeysuckle hid him where he crouched. It let him move unseen close to the
walls of Worldtree Center, that complex of buildings that surrounded and leaned against the Worldtree
the Remakers had left behind.
He looked upward, toward those walls, those buildings. They were built of stone and mortar, designed
to last forever. They were pierced by windows, many of them lit even so late at night. He saw shadows
moving, heard voice and music, smelled food.
Now there was a walk ahead of him, an open zone that he would have to cross to reach the Great
Hall. He let his face ease gently through the screen of vines and peered first left, then right. No one was in
sight. He could hear no crunch of gravel beneath distant feet.
Still, someone might be watching from further off. From some high window, dark or lighted. He chose
a darker portion of the path, slipped sideways from the honeysuckle, and stepped forward along the
gravel as naturally and normally as he could manage. A few more steps, another shadow, and he slipped
into the honeysuckle on the other side of the path. With luck, he thought, no watcher would have seen
where he came from or where he went. There he was, following the path like any other stroller. They
would assume they had not noticed him, that he had been there, on the path, all along and was still there
somewhere, lost from sight once more in darkness.
He bared his teeth in a Rac grin. He certainly hoped he was lost from sight.
The honeysuckle on this side of the path was a thin screen, a ruff of vegetation at the base of the stone
wall, a foundation for the vines that climbed the building's side and peeped in at the windows. He thought