"Harrison, Harry - Eden 2 - Winter In Eden" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

Kerrick went with Sanone to see the remains of the plant, poked at it with a stick. "Very small-but the thorns are just as big as those on the full-size plants. Were there any more?"

"We searched. Just this one."

"Everyone must wear leather around their feet. Strange plants must not be touched. The bigger children must look after the smaller ones. The children must stay in certain areas which will be gone over very carefully every morning."

After this Kerrick was hungry and went to the fire where Nenne's woman, Matili, always made room for him. She baked delicious meat in the ashes, coated it with clay that hardened so the meat was both tender and juicy. With this she had a paste in little dishes, made of fruit that had been mashed with salt and hot chilies, that the meat could be dipped into. It was very good and he was hungry.

Yet when he came to the fire Matili looked up at him coldly and made a gesture he had never seen before; with her hand held vertically in front of her nose, between her eyes. When he spoke to her she did not answer, but instead turned away and ran into the room where she and Nenne slept. It was mystifying and Kerrick was about to leave when Nenne appeared.

"I hope you are not hungry, Kerrick, for there is no meat." He kept his face averted when he said this, which was not his way.

"What is wrong with Matili?" Kerrick asked. "And why did she hold her hand like this?"

He repeated the gesture with his hand. But like a Yilanш he saw the hand gesture as part of a whole that involved the entire body, all of the limbs. So without realizing it he dropped his shoulder, held his hand before his chest in a protective, feminine gesture, even for one instant stood with his legs just as Matili had stood. Nenne saw this writhing movement and did not understand it, like many things he did not understand about Kerrick. He did not like them either, but he kept his feelings to himself. The moment had come to tell Kerrick; it was time that he understood. "Come over here, I will try to explain."

They walked under the trees until they could not be overheard. "It was the words you spoke last night. You talked with the manduktos, you shouted and many heard. Matili has been told what you said. What she did with her hand when she saw you, that is what foolish women do to turn Karognis away from them."

Kerrick was puzzled. "My words last night-and Karognis? I do not understand."

"Karognis is the evil one, as evil as the murgu, his eyes must not rest upon one or harm will befall."

"What have I to do with Karognis?"

"Some say you speak with the tongue of Karognis. You spoke words about Kadair that were overheard. That was not a good thing to do."

Kerrick looked at the grim expression on Nenne's face and knew that although he might deny it, he really felt the same as Matili did. The Sasku listened to the manduktos and understood them when they talked about the living world, how Kadair had made all of the world, and how all things in the world knew that. In this they were like the Tanu who saw life around them in everything, the animals and the birds, even the rivers and trees. Knowing where this life came from they would never speak of Ermanpadar with other than deepest respect. Kerrick always forgot this, had not grown up with these strong beliefs as the Tanu and the Sasku had done. He tried to make amends.

"I spoke in anger and fear. Tell Matili that it was not myself talking, what I said I did not mean."

"I must return." Neune turned and walked away without answering. It was obvious now that he really believed as the women did. Kerrick did not display his instant anger and call out after him the words that would only have added to the ill feeling. But he hated their stupidities.

They are only ustuzou.

They were, yes, but that was a Yilanш thought that he should not have-would not have. He was ustuzou just as they were, he was not Yilanш at all.

Yet even while he was thinking this he was walking toward the hanalш, wondering how the two males were faring. He was Tanu-but at this moment he felt like being with the Yilanш.

"Very boring," Nadaske said, and added a movement that signified asleep-forever. "We are here all the time, none come to see us. One time in the remote past you would take us around the city in the sunshine and that was pleasure. But you do it no more and we have only each other to talk to and very little to say after all these days. Once we had you to talk to, but of course you have other preoccupations and are rarely here."

"You are still alive," Kerrick said with some anger and bitterness. "That should be some satisfaction."

Nadaske turned away, signing female and interrogative as he did. Kerrick smiled at that, the suggestion that he had been acting harsh and insulting. Just like a female. Yet a short while ago it had been a female who had sent him hungry away from her fire. And he still had not eaten. He looked about. The males had fussy appetites and there was still some of the preserved meat left from the previous day. Kerrick peeled off a piece and ate it. Imehei wailed.

"We will die here, locked away-and we will starve too."

"Don't be stupid." Signing equality of males and foolishness, a confusing thing to do since it was a gesture used only by females. Yet these two assigned him the dominant-female role when he was with them. Quick anger grew; was he accepted nowhere?

"Vaintш has returned," he said. "She and many others are close by."