"Carol Emshwiller - Boys" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emshwiller Carol)

not wearing any stripes at all so I can't tell his rank. He stands, at ease. More than at ease, utterly
relaxed, and in front of a colonel.

But then тАж I can't believe it, it's Una. I should have known. Dressed as a man down to the boots. I
have such a sense of relief and after that joy. Everything will be all right now.

I tell the boys to get out and shut the door.

I reach for her, but the look on her face stops me.

"You shot me in the leg on purpose, didn't you! My good leg!"
 "I meant to shoot the bad one."

She opens all the windows, and the door again, too, and shoos the boys away.

"Let me see."

She's gentle. As I knew she'd be.

"I'll get the bullet out, but first I'll clean you up." She hands me leaves to chew for pain.

As she leans, so close above me, her hair falls out of her cap and brushes my face, gets in my mouth
as it does when we have copulation day. I reach to touch her breast but she pushes me away.

I should kill her for the glory of it тАж the leader of the women. I'd not be thought a failure then. I'd be
made a general in no time.

But, as she pulls away the soiled quilts, she finds my dagger first thing. She puts it in the drawer with
her kitchen knives.

I think again how тАж (and we all know, only too well) how love is a dangerous thing and can spoil the
best of plans. Even as I think it, I want to spoil the very plans I think of. I mean if she's the leader then I
could deal with her right now, as she leans over meтАФeven without my dagger. They may be good shots,
but can they wrestle a man? Even a wounded one?

"I chose you because I thought, of all of them, you might listen."

"You know I won't ever be let come down to copulation day again."

"Don't go back then. Stay here and copulate."

"I have often thought to bring you up to the mountain dressed as a man. I have a place all picked
out."

"Stay here. Let everybody stay here and be as women."

I can't answer such a thing. I can't even think about it.

"But then what else do you know except how to be a colonel?"