"Vonda N. McIntyre - Little Faces" - читать интересную книгу автора (McIntyre Vonda N)

Her first companion, drawing back into her, pulsed and muttered. Seyyan caught her breath.

"I never asked for this!" Yalnis cried.

Seyyan sat back on her heels, as lithe as a girl, but a million years old.

"I thought you wanted me," she said. "You welcomed meтАФinvited meтАФtook me to your bedтАФ"

Yalnis shook her head, though it was true. "Not for this," she whispered.

"It didn't even fight," Seyyan said, dismissing Zorargul's remains with a quick gesture. "It wasn't worthy of
its place with you."

"Who are you to decide that?"

"I didn't," Seyyan said. "It's the way of companions." She touched the reddening bulge of a son-spot just
below the face of her first companion. "This one will be worthy of you."

Yalnis stared at her, horrified and furious. Seyyan, the legend, had come to her, exotic, alluring, and
exciting. All the amazement and attraction Yalnis felt washed away in Zorargul's blood.

"I don't want it," she said. "I won't accept it."

Seyyan's companion reacted to the refusal, blinking, snarling. For a moment Yalnis feared Seyyan too
would snarl at her, assault her and force a new companion upon her.

Seyyan sat back, frowning in confusion. "But I thoughtтАФdid you invite me, just to refuse me? WhyтАФ?"

"For pleasure," Yalnis said. "For friendship. And maybe for loveтАФmaybe you would offer, and I would
acceptтАФ"

"How is this different?" Seyyan asked.

Yalnis leaped to her feet in a flare of fury so intense that her vision blurred. Cradling Zorargul's shriveling
body against her with one hand, she pressed the other against the aching bloody wound beneath her
navel.

"Get out of my ship," she said.

The ship, responding to Yalnis's wishes, began to resorb the nest into the floor.

Seyyan rose. "What did you think would happen," she said, anger replacing the confusion in her tone,
"when you announced the launch of a daughter? What do you think everyone is coming for? I was just
lucky enough to be first. Or unfortunate enough." Again, she brushed her long fingertips against the
son-spot. It pulsed, a red glow as hot and sore as infection. It must find a place, soon, or be stillborn.
"And what am I to do with this?"

Yalnis's flush of anger drained away, leaving her pale and shocked.
"I don't care." All the furnishings and softness of the room vanished, absorbed into the pores of Yalnis's