"Planet Of Twilight (Barbara Hambley)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

From a corner of the lounge, where a dark-leaved dyanthis vine shadowed
the area near the observation port, a soft voice whispered, "They never are,
are they?"
"Well, I was given to understand that the only inhabitants of the planet
before colonization recommenced after the fall of the Empire were descendants
of the original Meridian prisoners and guards."
In the shadow of the vine, Ashgad's secretary, Dzym, smiled.
Leia wasn't sure what to make of her irrational aversion to Dzym.
There were alien species whom the humans of the galaxy-the Corellians,
Alderaanians, and others-found repulsive, usually for reasons involving
subliminal cues like pheromones or subconscious cultural programming. But the
native Chorians-Oldtimers, they were called, whether they belonged to the
Theran cult or not-were descended from the same human rootstock. She wondered
whether her aversion had to do with something simple like diet. She was not
conscious of any odd smell about the small, brown-skinned man with his black
hair drawn up into a smooth topknot. But she knew that frequently one wasn't
conscious of such things. It was quite possible that there could be a
pheromonic reaction below the level of consciousness, perhaps the result of
inbreeding on a world where communities were widely scattered and had never
been large. Or it might be an individual thing, something about the looseness
of that neutral, unexceptional mouth or having to do with the flattened-
looking tan eyes that never seemed to blink.
"Are you one of the original Chorians, Master Dzym."
He was without gesture. Leia realized she had subconsciously been
expecting him to move in an unpleasing, perhaps a shocking, way. He didn't
nod, but only said, "My ancestors were among those sent to Nam Chorios by the
Grissmaths, yes, Your Excellency." Something changed in his eyes, not quite
glazing over but becoming preoccupied, as if all his attention were suddenly
directed elsewhere.
Ashgad went on hastily, as if covering the other man's lapse, "The
problem is, Your Excellency, that seven hundred and fifty years of complete
isolation has made the Oldtimer population of Nam Chorios into, if you will
excuse my frankness, the most iron-bound set of fanatical conservatives this
side of an academic licensing board.
They're dirt farmers-I understand. They've had centuries of minimal
technology and impossibly difficult weather and soil conditions, and you and I
both know how that makes for conservatism and, to put it bluntly,
superstition.
One of the things my father tried to institute on the planet was a modern
clinic in Hweg Shul. The place can't make enough to keep the med droids up and
running. The farmers would rather take their sick to some Theran cult Listener
to be healed with 'power sucked down out of the air."" His hands fluttered in
a sarcastic, hocus-pocus mime.
He took a seat in the other gray leather chair, a blocky man in a very
plain brown tunic and trousers obviously cut and fitted by a standard
patterning-droid and dressed up with add-ons-gold collar pin, gold-buckled
belt, pectoral chain-that Leia had seen in old holos of his father. He leaned
his elbows on his knees, bent forward confidingly.
"it isn't only the Newcomers that the Rationalist Party is trying to
help, Your Excellency," he said. "It's the farmers themselves. The Old timers