"Carol Emshwiller - Foster Mother" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emshwiller Carol)

FOSTER MOTHER
 DIRECTIONS FOR THE SMALL:

YOU'LL HAVE TO BOTTLE feed it. Give it plenty of strokes and hugs until it'll follow no one but you.
Don't let it get too obstreperous. That can happen when no other big ones of its own kind are around.
Then hand it over and leave the rest to us.

You may name it if you feel so inclined though a name is not necessary. We'll give it a name of our
own choosing if we need one.

Don't expect too much. They have small brains, about the size of two lima beans. As far as we know,
their smiles might not be smiles. Their tears, not tears. Though they bleed, they don't feel pain as we
do.

Afterward, let it go on with what it has to do. Go live a different story someplace far from here. Don't
come back.

Remember it belongs to us.

And so I'm thinking: Lester? Jester? Or, on the other hand, Baladin? Balladeer? He should have a
name the opposite of what he will become. It might stand him in good stead, and there might be a
little bit of hope.

Probably nobody will ever get to know the name except for the two of us.

He'll have to find his own kind of joy by himself. Best to have a joyful name. At least that. And best we
laugh a lot (if that is laughing). Tickle and tussle. Dance.

They call him, "it." The sex is not important to them.

He was absolutely the cutest thing I ever saw. They start out small. Just like us. Little chubby
goat-boy. Little chubby donkey-boy. Loves me already. As who else is there but me? I know I mustn't
take it personally.

But now, later, little skinny boy and even more goat-like and still the cutest thing I ever saw. Now he
calls me Mush, Mushka, Mash.... I don't remember how that started. I call him Kookie, Cookie....

I think he should have a musical instrument. Something that makes a deep bass sound. Tuba or
some such? Or the biggest viol there is? Except he's still too small. I think trumpet. That'll sound out
nicely from mountain to mountain, though it is a bit on the military side and reminds me of those
others who are in charge of us.

See us -- both of us leaping, though I'm not as good at it as he is. See us on cliff edges, naked or
almost. Well, he is, the sun browning us. See them, pointing up at us and looking pleased, folding
their hands around their important papers, all the paraphernalia of their status and their jobs hanging
about them. They wear so much nobody knows what they look like. Are they us or are they some
sort of alien?

He depends on me. In the beginning I even chewed his food for him. Better than trying to cut it. They
didn't give me a grinder.