"Judith Merril - Pioneer Stock" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merril Judith)

time.
 He smiled back and reached out to the baby. Still smiling, she picked it up and gave it to him to hold
for a minute. The infant's golden skin was so lovely, it passed through his head first to regret and then to
be glad that it would fade to pale green like its mother's in time. If Leah's skin were like that, or if the
other women of her race were colored so, a man might find it hard...
Thatcher was shocked by the gross sensuality of the thought.
Two discoveries in one day, and the second much harder to face than the first. For now he knew
why he'd decided to build in a place where there could he nothing but trouble in store for him, no matter
how hard George might try to avert it. And he was just as certain as ever that the only man in the world
for Leah was George Leseur.
If he'd thought about the trouble that was sure to come before he'd have told himself that it was
George he meant to befriend. Now he knew better, in one sense, but he was hopelessly mixed up in
another. As near as he could see there was going to be no way at all to help the lovely girl or the golden
baby to happiness.
Now ever, he thought, it was time for him to get out. He went to find Leseur, but the other man was
piling stones for the walls of Thatcher's new house, and Phil didn't have the heart to tell him. So he fell to
work with an angry pleasure, and nothing at all was said between the two of them.
During the next few days, Thatcher tried desperately to speak to his friend with a candor and
forthrightness that would take him out of the stockade forever. But he couldn't be angry at George
Leseur for taking the girl and keeping her, to protect her from the anger of her people. Nor could he
resent the girl's worship of the other man, nor propose in any way that she and her baby be put out now.
He couldn't even feel an active jealousy. His envy was without hope, and therefore without anger. Phil
Thatcher had never demanded much from others, and he never expected to.
So the second house went up, not quite as big, but every bit as strong as the first. As the time for the
rocket's arrival drew closer Leah made no further attempt to hide the baby, but brought it out into the
yard to watch the men work.
And not a word was said, in all that time, between them as to what could or should he done, for it
was clear that whatever happened would not be the simple decision of one manтАФor even two.
They worked, they waited and they worriedтАФbut not together.
And trouble came steadily closer, but not from the direction anticipated. The high thick wall of the
stockade had almost made them forget that there were others besides Dolly Leseur who might have a
word to say about what was going on inside.
The attack must have been planned carefully for a very long time ahead. The preparations could
hardly have gone unnoticed by the two men had they been less harassed and preoccupied with their
problems inside the walls. Their only task for days had been the building of Thatcher's house, and the
planting of a garden in the houseyard, and going out once a week, to inspect their claims, and discourage
jumpers.
When it happened, they had not been outside the stockade for five days running.
It began at night with a dazzling light, and the windy roar of flames. Just as quick, frightening and
simple as that, and there was nothing the men inside could do to fight the circle of fire. Nothing, except to
stare at each other once in grim despair, and set about preparing for the battle they knew would follow.
Through the night, by the light of their vanishing defenses, they brought in goods and provisions from
outside, drawing a store of water from the well to fill every container in the house, boarding up windows,
and nailing up the doors. Privately, perhaps, they prayed.
When the morning came, the thick pilings of the wall were burning still. Here and there, gaps had
occurred in the wall, but no enemy face showed anywhere.
By evening they might have begun to wonder if the fire had not accidentally started, had it not begun
all at once in a great circle around them. But when darkness fell, there could be no further question, for
now they could make our shadowy figures at the openings in the wall.
Later, one brave native came through in the light of the still-burning flames, and died on the spot, shot