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

Yalnis snuggled into the ship's substance, comforted by its caress. She laid her hand over her belly,
pressing her palm against the hot, healing wound, then petting each of the little faces. They bumped
against her palm, yearning, stretching from their shafts so she could tickle behind Asilgul's vestigial ears,
beneath Vasigul's powerful lower jaw. Even Bahadirgul advanced from its reserve, blinking its
long-lashed eyelids to caress her fingers, touching her palm with its sharp hot tongue.

Each one wished to pleasure her, but she felt no wish for pleasure. Even the idea of joy vanished, in grief
and guilt.

The nest drew around her, covering her legs, her sex, her stomach. It flowed over the faces and extruded
a nipple for each sharp set of teeth. The ship took over feeding the companions so they would not drain
Yalnis as she slept.

"Please, a thousand orbits," she said.

"True," said the ship, making her aware it was content to have time to complete and polish the daughter
ship, to prepare for the launch. But, afterward, it wanted to stretch and to explore. She accepted its
need, and she would comply.

For now she would sleep for a thousand orbits. If anyone besides Seyyan accepted the invitation to her
daughter's launch, they would arrive in good time, and then they could wait for her, as she waited for
them. Perhaps a thousand orbitsтАФa thousand years in the old way of speakingтАФwould give her time to
dream of a proper revenge. Perhaps a thousand years of sleep would let her dream away the edges of
her grief. The ship's support extensions grew against her, into her. She accepted the excretion extensions
and swallowed the feeding extension. The monitor gloved one hand and wrist.

The view through the dome swept the orbit's plane, facing outward toward the thick carpet of
multicolored stars, the glowing gas clouds.

Yalnis slept for a thousand years.




┬╖┬╖┬╖┬╖┬╖



The kiss of her ship woke her. Water exuded from the feeding extension, moistening her lips and tongue.
The tangy fragrance touched her consciousness. She drifted into the last, hypnopompic layer of sleep,
finding and losing dreams.

She thought: It would be good if тАж I would like тАж

Loss hit her unaware. A chill of regret and grief swept through her and to her four remaining companions;
they woke from their doze and released the nipples and squeaked and shrilled. The ship, after a thousand
orbits of the irritation of their little sharp teeth, drew away its fabric.

The ship made Yalnis aware of everything around them: the ship's own safety, the star and its planets, the
astronomical landscape glowing through the transparent dome.