"Karin Lowachee - Warchild" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lowachee Karin)

Helen Vorster
тАФ Meinwen Tsui, for all those discussions on Arctic
weekends that fueled my muse
тАФ The wonderful people I taught, worked with, and learned
from in Kangiqliniq. Qujannamiik nanurmit.
And, finally, on behalf of Mustard, thanks to Ketchup.



PART I
 I.
^┬╗
You didnтАЩt see their faces from where you hid behind the
maintenance grate. Smoke worked its fingers through the tiny
holes and stroked under your nose and over your eyes, forcing
you to stifle breaths, to blink, and to cry. Footsteps followed
everywhere that smoke went on the deckтАФ heavy, violent
footstepsтАФand everywhere they went, shouts went with them.
Screams. Pulse fire.
You hardly knew what to listen for, where that one voice
you wanted to hear so badly could be among all the other
voices that rose and fell on the other side of your screen. Your
shelter. Your cowardice.
But your parents had told you to hide if something like this
happened. ThereтАЩd been drills, even in the middle of your
sleepshift, so you knew when the klaxon wailed and Daddy
and Mama went for their guns and ushered you into the secret
compartment in the floor that you were doing what was right,
what you were told to do. Pirates or aliens or the Warboy
could attack Mukudori and you had to stay hidden, just in
case, just like you practiced. Daddy and Mama would come
back and get you when the klaxon stopped and theyтАЩd say you
did good, Jos. Daddy would call you his brave soldier boy, and
you would believe it. When they lifted you out of that hiding
place and smiled at you so proud, you didnтАЩt feel like an
eight-year-old at all.
But they hadnтАЩt come back to the secret compartment. The
little yellow light in there winked as if something was wrong
with it, on-off, on-off, until you shut your eyes and just
listened. But you were under the skin of the ship, like Daddy
said, and it was quiet. You didnтАЩt hear outside, and outside
couldnтАЩt hear you. It kept you safe. It was too dark so you
opened your eyes and looked up, touched the light, touched the
rough walls, but time went away with every yellow blink and
nobody came. It got too warm, as if somebody had shut the air
vents.
 You waited until your legs were numb from sitting in that
small space and Mama and Daddy didnтАЩt come back.
Everywhere was silence and you were too scared to move your
fingers and unhook the latch that would open a way into the