"Frank Herbert - The Featherbedders" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

'Excellent. Don't deviate. Remember that you're the offspring of Sumctroxelunsmeg. Your
jelly-sire's name took fourteen thousand heartbeats to pronounce. Live with pride.'
'I was supposed to go in there, take the risk of it -'
'There are risks and there are risks. Remember, make real tests for a real report. Never
betray your niche. When you have made the tests, find a place in that creekbed to secrete
yourself. Dig in and wait. Listen on the narrow band at all times. Listen, that is all you do. In
the event of disaster, you must get word to the others. In the kit there's a dog collar with a
tag bearing a promise of reward and the address of our Chicago drop. Do you know the
greyhound shape?'
'I know the plan, Dad.'
Rick slid out of the car. He removed a heavy black case from the rear, closed the doors,
stared in at his parent.
Smeg leaned across the seat, opened the window. It creaked dismally.
'Good luck, Dad,' Rick said.
Smeg swallowed. This body carried a burden of attachment to an offspring much stronger
than any in previous Slorin experience. He wondered how the offspring felt about the parent,
tried to probe his own feelings toward the one who'd created him, trained him, sealed his pupa
into the Scattership. There was no sense of loss. In some ways, he was the parent. As
different experiences changed him, he would become more and more the individual, however.
Syllables would be added to his name. Perhaps, someday, he might feel an urge to be
reunited.
'Don't lose your cool, Dad,' Rick said.
'The God of the Slorin has no shape,' Smeg said. He closed the window, straightened
himself behind the steering wheel.
Rick turned, trudged off across the field toward the cotton-woods. A low cloud of dust
marked his progress. He carried the black case easily in his right hand.
Smeg put the car in motion, concentrated on driving. That last glimpse of Rick, sturdy and
obedient, had pierced him with unexpected emotions. Slorin parted, he told himself. It is
natural for Slorin to part. An offspring is merely an offspring.
A Slorin prayer came into his mind: 'Lord, let me possess this moment without regrets and,
losing it, gain it forever.'
The prayer helped, but Smeg still felt the tug of that parting. He stared at the shabby
buildings of his target town. Someone in this collection of structures Smeg was now entering
had not learned a basic Slorin lesson: There is a reason for living; Slorin must not live in a
way that destroys this reason. Moderation, that was the key.


A man stood in the dusty sunglare toward the center of the town - one lone man beside
the dirt road that ran unchecked toward the distant horizon. For one haunted moment Smeg
had the feeling it was not a man, but a dangerous other-shaped enemy he'd met before. The
feeling passed as Smeg brought the car to a stop nearby.
Here was the American peasant, Smeg realized - tall, lean, dressed in wash-faded blue bib
overalls, a dirty tan shirt and tennis shoes. The shoes were coming apart to reveal bare toes.
A ground green painter's hat with green plastic visor did an ineffective job of covering his
yellow hair. The visor's rim was cracked. It dripped a fringe of ragged binding that swayed
when the man moved his head.
Smeg leaned out his window, smiled: 'Howdy.'
'How do.'
 Smeg's sense of hearing, trained in a history of billions of such encounters, detected the
xenophobia and reluctant bowing to convention at war in the man's voice.