"James Alan Gardner - League of Peoples 01 - Expendable" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gardner James Alan)

subject came up. I was just so glad to find myself in a conversation that wasn't shop-talk, I ignored my
usual caution.

Of course the others laughed... and wanting them to understand, I tried to explain how beautiful some
eggs can be. Every color of the rainbow, pale blues and soft oranges and golden yellows. All sizes, all
shapes. Some with shells as fragile as tissue paper, some so hard you can squeeze with all your might and
not harm them. Insect eggs, small and black like pepper. Amphibian eggs, chains of jellied eyes
suspended in water. Eggs from extraterrestrial life-forms, unique as snowflakes, perfumed, cylindrical,
clear as glass, red-hot to the touch....
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The other crew members didn't understand. Most of them didn't try. One or two put on intelligent
expressions and said, "That's interesting." They were the ones who most made me feel like a fool.

After that, I never discussed my collection in public. I didn't try to describe it, because I knew I couldn't.
I refused to show it to the crew because I would only be infuriated by their politely unappreciative
attention. Why should I watch them feign interest?

Eggs are self-contained worlds, perfect and internally sufficient. On every planet that supports life, there
are eggs. Whatever alien paths life may take, there are always eggs somewhere along the trail. My fellow
Explorers found this time and time again.

If I heard an Explorer's report state that eggs had been found on this or that planet, I transmitted a
personal request asking for a specimen. I almost always got what I wantedтАФExplorers help each other.

When I received an egg, I spent several days deciding how to display it. Some I mounted on wooden
stands; some I set in china dishes; some I swathed in cotton.

Receiving a new egg was cause for celebration. I took it out of its packing case and cradled it in my
hands, cherishing its fragility or its toughness or its warmth. Sometimes I could hold an egg for a full hour,
dreaming I was in touch with the mother who laid the egg or the child who called it home.

But all the eggs in my collection were sterile. They never hatched. Some were never fertilized. The others
had been irradiated by the Admiralty to kill whatever was inside themтАФtransport of alien organisms is
dangerous.

On nights when I couldn't sleep, I sat amidst them and listened to their silence.




The Call


It was on a night like that, a silent night, that I sat in my quarters, staring at a list of reports I ought to
study. It was late at night, as time was reckoned on the ship. I took great pride in working late hours.
Admittedly, time is an arbitrary convention in space; but I still enjoyed knowing I was awake while the