"James Patrick Kelly - Think Like a Dinosaur (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

clingy, her muscles were rigid. "Are they the ferrets or the things with the
orange bumps?"
"They look nothing like ferrets."
We popped through the door bubble into reception D, a compact
rectangular space with a scatter of low, unthreatening furniture. There was a
kitchen station at one end, a closet with a vacuum toilet at the other. The
ceiling was blue sky; the long wall showed a live view of the Charles River
and the Boston skyline, baking in the late June sun. Kamala had just finished
her doctorate at MIT.
I opaqued the door. She perched on the edge of a couch like a wren,
ready to flit away.
While I was making her tea, my fingernail screen flashed. I answered it
and a tiny Silloin came up in discreet mode. She didn't look at me; she was
too busy watching arrays in the control room. =A problem,= her voice buzzed in
my earstone, =most negligible, really. But we will have to void the last two
from today's schedule. Save them at Lunex until first shift tomorrow. Can this
one be kept for an hour?=
"Sure," I said. "Kamala, would you like to meet a Hanen?" I transferred
Silloin to a dino-sized window on the wall. "Silloin, this is Kamala Shastri.
Silloin is the one who actually runs things. I'm just the doorman."
 Silloin looked through the window with her near eye, then swung around
and peered at Kamala with her other. She was short for a dino, just over a
meter tall, but she had an enormous head that teetered on her neck like a
watermelon balancing on a grapefruit. She must have just oiled herself because
her silver scales shone. =Kamala, you will accept my happiest intentions for
you?= She raised her left hand, spreading the skinny digits to expose dark
crescents of vestigial webbing.
"Of course, I ..."
=And you will permit us to render you this translation?=
She straightened. "Yes."
=Have you questions?=
I'm sure she had several hundred, but at this point was probably too
scared to ask. While she hesitated, I broke in. "Which came first, the lizard
or the egg?"
Silloin ignored me. =It will be excellent for you to begin when?=
"She's just having a little tea." I said, handing her the cup. "I'll
bring her along when she's done. Say an hour?"
Kamala squirmed on couch. "No, really, it will not take me ..."
Silloin showed us her teeth, several of which were as long as piano
keys. =That would be most appropriate, Michael.= She closed; a gull flew
through the space where her window had been.
"Why did you do that?" Kamala's voice was sharp.
"Because it says here that you have to wait your turn. You're not the
only migrator we're sending this morning." This was a lie, of course; we had
had to cut the schedule because Jodi Latchaw, the other sapientologist
assigned to Tuulen, was at the University of Hipparchus presenting our paper
on the Hanen concept of identity. "Don't worry, I'll make the time fly."
For a moment, we looked at each other. I could have laid down an hour's
worth of patter; I'd done that often enough. Or I could have drawn her out on
why she was going: no doubt she had a blind grandma or second cousin just