"Judith Merril - Wish Upon a Star" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merril Judith)

cause of the trouble.
The intricate, patient skill with which Abdur tended the delicate young plants was fascinating to
Sheik. And the young children, he thought, would be interested in the luminous unfamiliar yellow of the
sickly leaves.
Abdur agreed with evident satisfaction to having the children visit the sick patch. He rebuked Sheik
only briefly and without heat for his forgetfulness, and set out immediately for his plants, taking the way
cross-ship, through the central living section, to reach the area on the other side of the hull without further
delay. Yoshikazu took his troupe of six around by the huflside route, routinely replying to the inevitable
routine questions at each step: why was this plant taller, the other stalk thicker, a leaf a darker green or
different shape. To most of the grown people on board, the endless rows of plants covering the whole
inner surface of the ship's hull were monotonous 'and near identical. Abdur knew better; so did Sheik;
and the nursery kids noticed things sometimes that Yoshikazu hadn't seen himself.
But this time he didn't want to stop at every plant. It was a slow enough trip with their short legs, and
he hurried them past spots where he might otherwise have tried to show them something new or slightly
changed. Then Dee, silly dimpled shrieking Dina, who, at barely two, should not (in Sheik's opinion) have
come into the nursery class as yet, sat herself down on the rootpacks and refused to budge.
Yoshikazu bent to pick her up. He'd carry her, rather than waste time coaxing now. But she pointed
to one root, growing wrong, malformed and upended, and stopped progress completely by-spilling out a
spurt of only half-coherent but entirely fascinated inquiry.
Well, he had been wrong; she was old enough. Sheik sat down beside her and got to work, framing
his answer, to her questions carefully, trying to give her a new mystery each time to provoke the next
useful question. He pulled packing away from around the upended root, dug down, and placed the root
where it belonged, giving all the children a chance to see how the other roots lay in the pack before he
covered it. He explained how the roots drank nourishment from the soil, and floundered attempting to
explain the action of the ultraviolet lamps.
All the while, Hari hung over his shoulder, watching the boy had seen it all before, when Dina was
too little to care, but he drank in every sight and every word as if it were the first time for him, too.
"It's like being tucked in," he broke in suddenly, offering his own level of lucidity in place of Sheik's
complications. "Like when your daddy tucks you in at night and kisses you and you feel warm and good
all over you and you grow in your sleep."
Dina's black eyes were shining with excitement. "I know," she said. "Every night when I sleep I
grow." She lifted a hand to prove the point. "Way up!"
"Well, that's how it is," Hari nodded commendation to his pupil. "Only the lights don't have to go out
for the plants to sleep, because they're asleep all the time. Underneath there. That's why they never go
anyplace."
His voice lost some confidence at the end. He looked to Yoshikazu for approval, and Dina looked
for confirmation.
Sheik hesitated, failed to find words for a more adequate explanation, and decided Hari had
probably put across more than he could for right now. He nodded and smiled at them both. "Come on,
now, or we won't have time to see the new plants." They all ran after him.
Lieutenant Johnson was on duty at the children's supper that evening. She strolled casually from one
of the four tables to another, listening to a scrap of conversation here, answering a question there,
correcting a younger child somewhere else, reminding FritziтАФwho at eleven had just become a table
leaderтАФto keep her group quieter.
At Sarah's table she paused only briefly; the officer on duty never had to stop there except for a
greeting. Sarah and Sheik had seven in their group, more than anyone else, but they never had trouble.
They were a good combination; Sheik glowed inwardly with his awareness of this, and with the feeling
that the same thought was passing through Johnson's mind as she looked from one end of the table to the
other. He didn't need any smiles from Johnson to keep him happy tonight, though. In the lounge, just
before, Sarah had asked him. As soon as he could swap his evening duty, he was to meet her and take