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

The alien and the boy, who was twelve, sat in the
windowless room high above the city that afternoon. The boy
talked and the alien listened.
The boy was ordinaryтАФthe genes of three continents in his
features, his clothes cut in the style of all boys in the vast
housing project called LAX. The alien was something else,
awful to behold; and though the boy knew it was rude, he did
not look up as he talked.
He wanted the alien to kill a man, he said. It was that
simple.
As the boy spoke, the alien sat upright and still on the one
piece of furniture that could hold him. Eyes averted, the boy
sat on the stool, the one by the terminal where he did his
schoolwork each day. It made him uneasy that the alien was
on his bed, though he understood why. It made him uneasy
that the creature's strange knee was so near his in the tiny
room, and he was glad when the creature, as if aware, too,
shifted its leg away.
He did not have to look up to see the Antalou's features.
That one glance in the doorway had been enough, and it
came back to him whether he wanted it to or not. It was not
that he was scared, the boy told himself. It was just the
ideaтАФthat such a thing could stand in a doorway built for
humans, in a human housing project where generations had
been born and died, and probably would forever. It did not
seem possible.
He wondered how it seemed to the Antalou.


3
 Kin
by Bruce McAllister


Closing his eyes, the boy could see the black synthetic skin
the alien wore as protection against alien atmospheres. Under
that suit, ropes of muscles and tendons coiled and uncoiled,
rippling even when the alien was still. In the doorway the long
neck had not been extended, but he knew what it could do.
When it telescoped forwardтАФas it could instantlyтАФthe head
tipped up in reflex and the jaws opened.
Nor had the long talonsтАФwhich the boy knew sat in the
claws and even along the elbows and toesтАФbeen unsheathed.
But he imagined them sheathing and unsheathing as he
explained what he wanted, his eyes on the floor.
When the alien finally spoke, the voice was inhumanтАФ
filtered through the translating mesh that covered half its