"Foster, Alan Dean - 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" -- the dog flattened his ears and lowered his head apologetically -- "he says he comes to see you."
The girl laughed, and silver flute notes skittered off the polished stone floor.
"To see me? Stranger and stranger. And really alone?" She swung perfect legs off the balustrade. "What kind of mal is this?"
"A horse, mistress."
The flawless brow wrinkled. "Horse? Well, let's see this strange mal that travels alone."
They walked toward the foyer, past cages of force filled with rainbow-colored tropical birds.
"Tell me, Patch . .. what is a 'horse'?"
"A large four-legged vegetarian." The dog's brow twisted with the pain of remembering. Patch was extremely bright for a dog. ."There are none on Calder. I do not think there are any in the entire system."
"Off-planet, too?" Her curiosity was definitely piqued, now. "Why come to see me?"
"I do not know, mistress."
"And without even a human over h -- "
Voice and feet stopped together.
The mal standing in the foyer was not as large as some. La Moure's elephants were much bigger. But it was extraordinary in other ways. Particularly the head. Why ... it was exquisite! Truly breathtaking. Not an anthropomorphic beauty, but something uniquely its own.
Patch slipped away quietly.
The horse was black as the Pit, with tiny exceptions. The right front forelock was silver, as was the diamond on its forehead. And there was a single streak
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of silver partway through the long mane, and another in the black tail. Most mal wore only a lifepouch, and this one's was strapped to its neck. But it also wore an incongruous, utterly absurd hat of green felt, with a long feather, protruding out and back.
With a start she realized she'd been staring . . . very undignified. She started toward it again. Now the head swung to watch her. She slowed and stopped involuntarily, somehow constrained from moving too close.
"This is ridiculous! she thought. It's only a mere mal, and not even very big. Why, it's even herbivorous!
Then whence this strange fluttering deep in her
tummy?