"Bruce McAllister- Kin" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mcallister Bruce)

began to move.
The alien watched, curious. The boy was making himself
step toward him, though why he would do this the alien did
not know. It was a human custom perhaps, a
"sentimentality," and the boy, though afraid, thought he must
offer it.
When the boy reached the alien, he put out an unsteady
hand, touched the Antalou's shoulder lightlyтАФonce, twiceтАФ
and then, remarkably, drew his hand down the alien's
damaged arm.


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 Kin
by Bruce McAllister


The alien was astonished. It was an Antalouan gesture,
this touch.
This is no ordinary boy, the alien thought. It was not
simply the boy's intelligenceтАФhowever one might measure
itтАФor his understanding of the Antalou. It was something
elseтАФsomething the alien recognized.
Something any killer needs....
The Antalouan gesture the boy had used meant "obligation
to blood," though it lacked the slow unsheathing of the
demoor. The boy had chosen well.
"Thank you," the boy was saying, and the alien knew he
had rehearsed both the touch and the words. It had filled the
boy with great fear, the thought of it, but he had rehearsed
until fear no longer ruled him.
As the boy stepped back, shaking now and unable to stop
it, he said, "Do you have a family-cluster still?"
"I do not," the alien answered, not surprised by the
question. The boy no longer surprised him. "It was a decision
... made without regrets. Many Antalou have made it. My
work ... prevents it. You understand...."
The boy nodded, a gesture which meant that he did.
And then the boy said it:
"What is it like to kill?"
It was, the alien knew, the question the boy had most
wanted to ask. There was excitement in the voice, but still no
fear.
When the alien answered, it was to say simply:
"It is both ... more and less ... than what one ... imagines
it will be."
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 Kin
by Bruce McAllister