"Bc42" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry & Pournelle)

Aaron's smile was fond, but remote, the thin smile of one who sees more than anyone else and knows he will never be understood. "Trish, no one owns this planet," he said. "Neither human nor grendel. And least of all the man who was Aaron Tragon. But together . . . "
Nightmare, Justin thought. What would Colonel Weyland have done? We think we know so much more than they do, but--"Keep him safe," Justin said. "We need to ask Zack."
Trish and Edgar took Aaron's arms and led him away. He halted them when he came to Sylvia, and they stood and waited for him as if he were still the master. "I am sorry for what Aaron did," he said. "You will want to know that Cadmann died well." He nodded to his guards and limped away.
Sylvia watched as the procession receded. Her shoulders slumped. Suddenly, unbidden and unstoppably, the tears she had not cried for two years streamed down her cheeks in a cleansing torrent. As if a dam within her had suddenly given way. As if in some manner she didn't understand, Aaron Tragon had given her the greatest gift of her life.

Chaka gingerly approached the grendel and knelt by it. She watched him in return. Amazed at his own daring, he actually reached out and ran his fingers over her pebbled skin, felt the living fire within, and marveled. "It is you, isn't it, Old Girl? Name of God," he whispered. "What are we going to do with you?"

Old Grendel felt peaceful. Working together, she and the Strongest Weird had survived the bad times. Now the dark one she had saved before would stand between her and the others. Would protect her as she had protected him.
This was strangeness. But these weirds worked together like dam builders. She knew things. Could show them, perhaps. And as she grew older, and not so able to hunt, perhaps they would help her in turn.
She wondered about the Strongest Weird. For two years they had lived together, and she had begun to understand some of the weird's sounds. The world of vocal communication was another explosion of strangeness. She wondered what they would do with that one. Strongest Weird was a God of some kind. Perhaps they were all Strongest Weird's children.
She didn't know. But the Death Wind was dwindling. More bad times would come, but they would find something new in the world.
Grendels. Weirds. Together.