"Joe Haldeman - Forever Free" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

accent always sounded strange when he first got back from school. He didn't speak English in class
or, I suspected, with many of his friends.

"Over the sixty percent mark," I said, scrubbing my hands and face at the work sink. "Any
better luck and we'll have to eat the damned things ourselves."

"Think I'll poach a big bunch for dinner," Marygay said, deadpan. That gave them the flavor
and consistency of cotton.

"Come on, Mom," Bill said. "Let's just have them raw." He liked them even less than I did.
Chopping off their heads was the high point of his day.

I went to the trio of casks at the other end of the room and tapped a glass of dry red wine,
then sat with Bill on the bench by the fire. I poked at it with a stick, a social gesture probably
older than this young planet.

"You were going to have the art zombie today?"

"The art history Man," he said. "She's from Centrus. Haven't seen her in a year. We didn't
draw or anything; just looked at pictures and statues."

"From Earth?"

"Mostly."

"Tauran art is weird." That was a charitable assessment. It was also ugly and
incomprehensible.

"She said we have to come to it gradually. We looked at some architecture."

Their architecture, I knew something about. I'd destroyed acres of it, centuries ago. Felt
like yesterday sometimes.

"I remember the first time I came across one of their barracks," I said. "All the little
individual cells. Like a beehive."

He made a noncommittal noise that I took as a warning. "So where's your sister?" She was still
in high school but had the same bus. "I can't keep her schedule straight."

"She's at the library," Marygay said. "She'll call if she's going to be late."

I checked my watch. "Can't wait dinner too long." The meeting was at eight and a half.

"I know." She stepped over the bench and sat down between us, and handed me a plate of
breadsticks. "From Snell, came by this morning."

They were salty and hard; broke between the jaws with an interesting concussion. "I'll thank
him tonight."

"Old folks party?" Bill asked.