"Alan Dean Foster - Dream Done Green" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

Dream Done Green

By Alan Dean Foster



The life of the woman Casperdan is documented in the finest detail, from birth
to death, from head to toe, from likes to dislikes to indifferences.
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WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE . ..
Humans are like that.
The stallion Pericles we know only by his work.
Horses are like that.
We know it all began the year 1360 Imperial, 1822 After the Breakthrough, 2305
after the human Micah Schell found the hormone that broke the lock on
rudimentary animal intelligence and enabled the higher mammals to attain at
least the mental abilities of a human ten-year-old.
The quadrant was the Stone Crescent, the system Burr, the planet Calder, and
the city Lalokindar.
Lalokindar was a wealthy city on a wealthy world. It ran away from the ocean
in little bumps and curlicues. Behind it was virgin forest; in front, the
Beach of Snow. The homes were magnificent and sat on spacious grounds, and
that of the industrialist Dandavid was one of the most spacious and
magnificent of all.
His daughter Casperdan was quite short, very brilliant, and by the standards
of any age an extraordinary beauty. She had the looks and temperament of a
Titania and the mind of a Baron Sachet. Tomorrow she came of legal age, which
on Calder at that time was seventeen.
Under Calderian law she could then, as the oldest (and only) child, assume
control of the family business or elect not to. Were one inclined to wager on
the former course he would have found planty of takers. It was only a
formality. Girls of seventeen did not normally assume responsibility and
control for multimil-lion-credit industrial complexes.
Besides, following her birthday Casperdan was to be wed to Comore du Sable,
who was handsome and intelligent (though not so rich as she).
Casperdan was dressed in a blue nothing and sat on the balustrade of the wide
balcony overlooking Snow Beach and a bay of the Greengreen Sea. The aged
German shepherd trotted over to her, his claws clicking softly on the purple
porphyry.
The dog was old and grayed and had been with the
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Dream Done Green
family for many years. He panted briefly, then spoke.
"Mistress, a strange mal is at the entrance."
Casperdan looked idly down at the dog.
"Who's its master?"
"He comes alone," the dog replied wonderingly.
"Well, tell him my father and mother are not at home and to come back
tomorrow."
"Mistress"тАФthe dog flattened his ears and lowered his head apologeticallyтАФ"he