"Bc21" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry & Pournelle)

Jessica and Justin remained by the fireside. Silences between them were strained these days, ever since . . . what had happened. But that was the chance they had taken. If anything he seemed more uncomfortable about it than she did. And that, she decided, was appropriate.
"Looking forward to the week?"
"We'll see a lot of territory," he said.
"Good find," she said. "The females make good meat, and are decent beasts of burden. The males are as fast as racehorses. Good stock.
"Imagine a hunt," she said. "Some kind of camo shirts and pants, and riding one of these beauties. Sneak up on anything."
"I've thought about it for weeks." Justin stretched. "Well, I think it's that time. Big day tomorrow."
"Big day."
He left without a backward glance. Jessica hunched her knees and stared into the fire. For all of her life she had treasured countless long, intimate conversations with Justin. She missed them more than she could have dreamed.
And yet . . . what she had done . . . what they had done was right. The only thing she regretted was Toshiro. He of the gifted hands and strong, golden body . . .
He had made his choice. As Justin had made his.
As her father had made his. And the colony theirs.
The fire crackled, grew higher and warmer, and then slowly began to die. It was well after midnight before she felt sleepiness to match her fatigue.

Justin woke at the stirring of the horses. For a bare moment he was disoriented, unable to remember where he was. In his father's house? He sat up in his bedroll and washed his face from a canteen. On the mainland every camp away from a base would be a dry camp. Tau Ceti was showing a bare sliver of red to the east, and the air was pleasantly chill. The prairie was silent, and the creatures that took the place of insects on Avalon were quiet.
The path ahead was clear. Three days' ride to the foot of the mountains, some through grendel country, but they had the technology to deal with those. Grendels wouldn't dictate their route. "First one up makes breakfast," someone called. Justin grinned and poured powdered eggs and water into a pan. Others were stirring. Chaka came over to watch the dawn with him. "Morning, cowboy."
"Yippie-yi-o-tie-yay," Justin said.
"Do you see any problems in working with Jessica for the next three days?"
Justin glared at him.
"I know that there have been some--"
Justin interrupted him. "Listen. She made her choice. It wasn't totally right--but it wasn't totally wrong, either. I made my choice. We have problems. But she's still my . . ."
He thought about it. A dozen possibilities flashed through his mind. "Family," he decided. "She's my family. We'll work it out."

An hour later a skeeter buzzed in from the south. Justin frowned when he saw Aaron climb out of the cabin. He felt a flash of unreasoning dislike, even hatred burning at the back of his brain.
Aaron. Everything that is good here would have happened anyway. Eventually. And everything bad--you brought. You always knew how to make the games come out your way, didn't you?
Jessica, still tousled but beautiful, went to meet him. Aaron embraced her, then cast a radiant smile in Justin's direction. "Top of the morning, sir."
"Love sleeping on the ground," he said. Aaron roared as if it was the funniest thing that he'd ever heard, and slapped Justin's shoulder. "All ready to go?"
There was a chorus of ayes.
I'm not being fair, Justin thought. Sour grapes. Selfish. And part of his mind whispered. You could have been the leader if you 'd wanted to be. But you wouldn't do it, and now Aaron has that and Jessica too.

NickNack was already out of sight. Skeeters went along to assist in herding the chamels. Two hundred chamels, and ten horsemen to keep them under control. Shock prods and tranquilizers for the uncooperative.
Aaron grinned widely. "Head 'em up! Move 'em out!" he shouted.
Someone answered, "Rawhide!"
The chamel pen was made of nylon netting strung from poles. Two electric lines kept both chamels and predators away from it. Chaka opened the gate as Justin mounted a roan mare from the remount pool. They call it the ramada, he thought. The word, like most everything else they knew about cattle drives, came from recordings of Earth television shows.
Aaron stood in his stirrups. "All right, we have thirty klicks that's never been explored on foot," he shouted. "The skeeters will scout it for us, but stay in threes! Stay together, stay alive. Nobody gets hurt, right? All right, let's move."
"Heeyah!" Katya had ducked under the pen's netting. She waved her arms and shouted to drive the chamels out.
The males moved with light, birdlike fast-twitch motion, scenting the air and looking for an opportunity to escape. One made a dash eastward. Justin kicked at his horse and again wished for spurs. They weren't needed, but there was something about boots and spurs. He laughed and dashed after the stray, caught up and swatted it with a stun wand. The effect was astonishing. It dropped exactly where it was, quivered, and changed colors twice. Its huge eyes blinked three times, and an enormous tear rolled out of one. Then it scrabbled up onto its haunches, and it looked at him accusingly, as if to say, "You beast!"
He prodded it back toward the herd. It returned slowly, damn near dusting itself off first, its dignity untouched. It humphed like a society matron.
Jessica reined up next to him. "Shut your mouth," she said. "You'll draw flies. Well. You certainly made a fan there, didn't you?"
He rolled his eyes, chucked his mount, and kept them moving.
Tau Ceti rose steadily in the sky, but the air remained cool. They were close to the equator, but heading into the high country, and this was winter in Avalon's northern hemisphere. In summer the high desert might be a blasted heath, but it was tolerable for now.
In fact, it was downright pleasant. There were vast beds of poppy-like flowers, and twice he hopped off his mount to snag samples for Cassandra's information banks. Her major task was cataloging and analysis of all data on mainland animal, vegetable, and mineral forms.
This is the way to tame a continent. You have to let it take its crack at you. Some die and merge with the new world. More are born to take their part of the future.
But all this would have happened, in time. Toshiro died because Aaron was in a hurry.
The way was lazy and long, the sun and the dust and the cool breezes were intoxicants. The chamels sang songs of sadness and loss. He tried to whistle their repetitive rhythm.
Chaka rode up next to him. He rode double with Wendy Powers, who often shared his bed.
"This is the life, eh?"
"No worries, if that's what you mean."
"Right. Hakuna matata," Chaka said.
They rode together for a while, in silence. The chamels lowed and sang. The rumble of their hooves on the hard-packed dirt was a music all its own.
Wendy shaded her eyes with one hand, and with the other pointed at an irregular mound, man-high, a hundred meters to the north. "Another one of those bug hills," she said.