"Zenna Henderson - No different flesh" - читать интересную книгу автора (Henderson Zenna)

I'll be able to send it off."
"I'm so glad," said Meris, her happiness welling strongly up inside her. "I
was afraid my foolishness-"
"The foolishness is all past now," said Mark. "It is remembered against us no
more."
Johannan had sat up at Mark's approach. He smiled now and said carefully,
"I'm glad my child and I haven't interrupted your work too much. It would be a
shame if our coming messed up things for you."
"You have a surprising command of the vernacular if English is not your
native tongue," said Mark, his interest in Johannan suddenly sharpening.
"We have a knack for languages," smiled Johannan, not really answering
anything.
"How on earth did you come to lose Lala?" Meris asked, amazed at herself for
asking such a direct question.
Johannan's face sobered. "That was quite a deal-losing a child in a
thunderstorm over a quarter of a continent." He touched Lala's cheek softly
with his finger as she patiently tried to make the worn-out tape stick again
on Deeko. "It was partly her fault," said Johannan, smiling ruefully. "If she
weren't precocious-You see, we do not come into the atmosphere with the large
ship-too many complications about explanations and misinterpretations and a
very real danger from trigger-happy-or unhappy-military, so we use our
life-slips for landings."
"We?" murmured Meris.
"Our People," said Johannan simply. "Of course there's no Grand Central
Station of the Sky. We are very sparing of our comings and goings. Lala and I
were returning because Lala's mother has been Called and it is best to bring
Lala to Earth to her grandparents."
"Her mother was called?" asked Mark.
"Back to the Presence," said Johannan. "Our years together were very brief."
His face closed smoothly over his sorrow. "We move our life-slips," he went on
after a brief pause, "without engines. It is an adult ability, to bring the
life-slips through the atmosphere to land at the Canyon. But Lala is
precocious in many Gifts and Persuasions and she managed to jerk her life-slip
out of my control on the way down. I followed her into the storm-" He gestured
and smiled. He had finished.
"But where were you headed?" asked Mark. "Where on earth-?"
"On Earth," Johannan smiled. "There is a Group of the People. More than one
Group, they say. They have been here, we know, since the end of the last
century. My wife was of Earth. She returned to the New Home on the ship we
sent to Earth for the refugees. She and I met on the New Home. I am not
familiar with Earth-that's why, though I was oriented to locate the Canyon
from the air, I am fairly thoroughly lost to it from the ground."
"Mark," Meris leaned over and tapped Mark's knee. "He thinks he has explained
everything."
Mark laughed. "Maybe he has. Maybe we just need a few years for absorption
and amplification. Questions, Mrs. Edwards?"
"Yes," said Meris, her hand softly on Lala's shoulder.
"When are you leaving, Johannan?"
"I must first find the Group," said Johannan. "So, if Lala could stay-"
Meris's hands betrayed her. "For a little while longer," he emphasized. "It