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

so, he was conspicuous now only because he was separated from the others. Gryf was conspicuous in
any crowd, but the rig was too far away for Kylis to identify even Gryf's astonishing ebony and tan
calico-patterned skin. The first time she had seen him, his first day at Screwtop, she had stared at him so
long that he noticed and laughed at her. It was not a ridiculing laugh, but an understanding one. Gryf
laughed at himself, too, sometimes, and often at the people who had made him what he was.
Gryf was the first tetraparental Kylis had ever seen or heard of, and even among tetras Gryf was
unusual. Of his four biological parents, it happened that two of them were dark, and two fair. Gryf had
been planned to be a uniform light brown, only his hair, perhaps, varicolored. Genes for hair color did not
blend like those for skin. But the sets of sperm and ova had been matched wrong, so the mixture of two
embryos forming Gryf made him his strange paisley pattern. He still had all the selectable intellectual gifts
of his various parents. Those qualities, not his skin, were important.
New tetraparentals were special; the life of each was fully planned. Gryf was part of a team, and it
was inconceivable to the government of Redsun and to the other tetras that after all the work of making
him, after all the training and preparation, he would refuse his duty. When he did, he was sent for
punishment to Redsun's strictest prison. If he changed his mind, he could at a word return to the tetras'
secluded retreat. He had been at Screwtop half a year and he had not said that word.
Kylis was no Redsun native; she was oblivious to the others' awe of Gryf. She was curious about him.
Neither because of nor in spite of the pattern of his skin, he was beautiful. Kylis wondered how his hair
would feel, the locks half black and wiry, half blond and fine.
He was assigned to a nearby crew. Kylis saw immediately that he had been given hard and dirty jobs,
not the most dangerous ones but those most tiring. The guards' task was not to kill him but to make life
so unpleasant that he would return to the tetras.
Kylis waited to speak to him until she would not risk discipline for either of them. Without seeming to,
the Lizard was watching Gryf closely, padding by every so often in his stealthy, silent way, his close-set
eyes heavy-lidded, the direction of his gaze impossible to determine. But eventually his duties took him to
another part of the camp, and Kylis left her own work to tell Gryf the tricks experience had taught her to
make the labor a little easier.
Their first night together was Gryf's first night at Screwtop. When the shift ended, it seemed natural to
walk back to the prisoners' shelters together. They were too tired to do much more than sleep, but the
companionship was a comfort and the potential for more existed. They lay facing each other in the
darkness. Starlight shone through a break in the clouds and glinted from the blond locks of Gryf's hair.
"I may never be let out of here," Gryf said. He was not asking for sympathy, but telling her his future as
best he knew it. He had a pleasant, musical voice. Kylis realized these were the first words she heard him
say. But she remembered his thanking her for her advice-- and recalled that he had thanked her with his
smile and a nod and the look in his eyes.
"I'm in for a long time," Kylis said. "I don't think there's that much difference between us." Screwtop
could kill either of them the next day or the day before release.
Kylis reached up and touched Gryf's hair. It was stiff and matted with sweat. He took her hand and
kissed her grimy palm. From then on they stayed together, growing closer but never speaking of a future
outside the prison.
Several sets later Jason arrived and changed everything.
Kylis brought herself back to the present. She knew Gryf was below somewhere, though she could
not make him out in the blotch of dirty white. She had been on the last shift during a previous set and she
knew the schedule. The prisoners still working would not be exposed to much more danger today.
Instead, they would have the dullest and most exhausting job of the period. During the last shift before the
free day, once every forty days, all the equipment was cleaned and inspected. Anything done wrong was
done over; the shift could drag on long past its normal end. Kylis hoped that would not happen this time.
At the bottom of the slope, Jason emerged from the bright cancer of machinery. He was muddy and
grease-spattered, gold-flecked with bleached hair. He was very large and very fair, and even on Redsun
where the light had little ultraviolet he sunburned easily. Though he had been working from dusk to