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

And it displayed to her the swarm of other ships, sending to her in their individual voices that ships and
people had come to celebrate the launch of her daughter and her ship's daughter. She recognized friends
and acquaintances, she noted strangers. She looked for former lovers, and found, to her joy and
apprehension, that Zorar's ship sailed nearby.

And, of course, Seyyan remained.

During Yalnis's long rest, Seyyan had never approached, never tried to attach or attack. Yalnis felt glad
of this. Her ship would have surrounded itself with an impermeable shell, one that induced a severe
allergic reaction in other ships. A defensive shell drew heavily on a ship's resources. Her ship was sleek
and well-provisioned, but growing defenses while developing a daughter ship would strain any resources.

Instead of approaching, Seyyan's craft's course had closely paralleled her own for all this time, as if it
were herding and protecting Yalnis.

Annoyed that she had not anticipated such a moveтАФshe had expected aggression, not a show of
protectionтАФYalnis nudged her ship to a different course, to a mathematical center along the long curved
line of other craft. Her ship agreed and complied, even to skirting the bounds of safety and good
manners, in moving itself into a position where Seyyan would have difficulty acting as their shadow.

Yalnis stretched. The ship, understanding that she wished to rise, withdrew its extensions from her body.
She gagged a little, as she always did, when the nutrient extension slid up her throat, across her tongue,
between her lips, leaving a trace of sweetness. The extension collapsed; the ship's skin absorbed it.
Excretion extensions and the monitor followed, and disappeared.

She raised her head slowly. The weight of her hair, grown long, held her down. She turned the dome
reflective and gazed up.

Her hair spread in a wide shining fan across the floor, covering the whole diameter of the living room,
drawn out by the living carpet as it lengthened. Its color ranged in concentric circles. The outer circle,
spread out so wide that each hair was a single ray, glowed an attenuated platinum blond, the color she
had worn her hair when she first met Seyyan. It changed dramatically to black, then progressed from
honey to auburn to dark brown, and the sequence started over. She removed the palest color from the
growth sequence for the future. It would only remind her.

Instead of cutting her hair to the short and easy length she usually favored, she asked the ship to sever it
at a length that would touch the ground when she stood.

Despite the ship's constant care when she slept, she always had difficulty rising after a long hibernation.
The ship eased the gravity to help her. She rose on shaky legs, and stumbled when she left the nest. The
companions squealed with alarm.

"Oh, be quiet," she said. "What cause have I ever given you, to fear I'd fall on you?" Besides, their
instincts would pull them inside her if she ever did fall, and the only bruises would form on her own body.

But even if I've never fallen on them, she thought, Ihave left them reason to fear. To doubt my protection.

Her hair draped around her shoulders, over her breasts, along her hips and legs to the ground. The
companions peered through the thick curtain, chittering with annoyance. Bahadirgul sneezed. In sudden
sympathy, she pushed her hair back to leave them free.