"Frankowski, Leo - Stargard 5 - Lord Conrad's Lady" - читать интересную книгу автора (Frankowski Leo)

Lord ConradТs Lady
Book 5 of the Adventures of Conrad Starguard

By Leo Frankowski

ISBN: 0-345-36849-5






Prologue


On the lush African plain, at two and a half million years B.C., two small brown individuals were sitting naked on a small hill. To all outward appearances they were a pair of type twenty-seven proto-humans.

УThereТs blood on your leg,Ф he said.

УIТm menstruating. The antifertility vaccine is wearing off. ItТs been a hundred and eighty years, and the shot was only supposed to last a century.Ф

УYeah. My shots are wearing out, too. My eyesight is going bad, and my joints hurt a lot in the mornings. Ф

УWeТre getting old,Ф she said. УJust like people used to grow old before technology.Ф

УTheyТll never find us, you know. If they were looking, they would have been here by now.Ф

УWhat did we ever do to deserve this?Ф she said.

УI didnТt do anything. You dumped the bossТs cousin into the thirteenth century when the guy didnТt even know about time travel.Ф

УShut up! I donТt want to talk about it again.Ф

УWell, thereТs something we ought to talk about. WeТre getting old. Before too many more years, we wonТt be able to take care of ourselves anymore. If we stay with the protos, theyТll treat us the same way they treat their own parents when they get too old to be useful. TheyТll just abandon us,Ф he said.

УSo?Ф

УSo we have to do something about it! We have to make sure that thereТs somebody around to take care of us when we get really old. See, my antifertility shots have worn off, too. For the next few years you can still have children, and IТm still fit enough to take care of you and them. If we raise them right, theyТll take care of us when it really gets bad.Ф

УYouТre such an asshole. Do you think IТd have children and raise them to live in this environment? To be savages two million years before any other real people exist? No way. Ф

УWill you say that when you are starving to death because you have no teeth to chew your food with? By then itТll be too late to do anything about it!Ф

УYouТre also a damn coward,Ф she said.




Chapter One