"Andre Norton - Dark Piper" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

look beyond the next corner will sometimes keep heart in a man.
Since the population of Beltane was small, most of them specialists and members of such families, it
had been drained of manpower by the services, and of the hundreds who were so drafted, only a handful
returned. My father did not. We Collises were First Ship family, but unlike most, my grandfather had
been no techneer, nor bio-master, but had commanded the Security force. Thus, from the beginning, our
family was, in a small measure, set apart from the rest of the community, though there was nothing but a
disparity of interests to make that so. My father lacked ambition perhaps. He went off-world and passed
in due course through Patrol training. But he did not elect to try for promotion. Instead, he opted to
return to Beltane, assuming, in time, command of the Security force here that his father had commanded.
Only the outbreak of the war, which caused a quick call-up of all available trained men, pulled him away
from the roots he desired.
I would have undoubtedly followed his example, save that those ten years of conflict wherein we were
more or less divorced from space kept me at home. My mother, who had been of a techneer family, died
even before my father lifted with his command, and I spent the years with the Ahrens. Imbert Ahren was
head of the Kynvet station and my motherтАЩs cousin, my only kin on Beltane. He was an earnest man, one
who achieved results by patient, dogged work rather than through any flashes of brilliance. In fact, he
was apt to be suspicious of unorthodox methods and the yielding to тАЬhunchesтАЭ on the part of
subordinatesтАФthough, give him his due, he only disapproved mildly and did nothing to limit any gropings
on their part.
His wife, Ranalda, was truly brilliant in her field and more intolerant of others. We did not see much of
her, since she was buried in some obtuse research. The running of the household fell early on Annet, who
was but a year younger than I. In addition, there was Gytha, who usually was to be found with a reading
tape and who had as little domestic interest as her mother. It must be that the specialization that grew
more and more necessary as my species entered space had, in a fashion, mutated us, though that might
be argued against by the very people most affected. Though I was tutored and urged to choose work
that would complement the labors of the station, I had no aptitude for any of it. In the end, I was
studying, in a discontinuous manner, toward a Rangership in one of the ReservesтАФan occupation Ahren
believed I might just qualify forтАФwhen the war, which had not affected us very directly, at last came to a
dreary end.
There was no definite victory, only a weary drawing apart of the opponents from exhaustion. Then
began the interminable тАЬpeace talks,тАЭ which led to a few clean-cut solutions.
Our main concern was that Beltane now seemed forgotten by the powers that had established it. Had
we not long before turned to living off the land, and the land been able to furnish us with food and
clothing, we might have been in desperate straits. Even the biannual government ships, to which our
commerce and communication had sunk in the last years of the war, had now twice failed to arrive, so
that when a ship finally planeted, it was a cause for rejoicingтАФuntil the authorities discovered it was in no
way an answer to our needs but rather was a fifth-rate tramp hastily commandeered to bring back a
handful of those men who had been drafted off-world during the conflict. Those veterans were indeed the
halt and the blindтАФcasualties of the military machine. Among these was Griss Lugard. Although he had
been a very close part of my childhood, the second-in-command of the force my father had led starward,
I did not know him as he limped away from the landing ramp, his small flight bag seeming too great a
burden for his stick-thin arms as its weight pulled him a little to one side and added to the unsteadiness of
his gait. He glanced up as he passed, then dropped that bag. His hand half went out, and the mouth of a
part-restored face (easy to mark by the too smooth skin) grimaced.
тАЬSimтАФтАЭ
Then his hand went to his head, moving across his eyes as one who would brush aside a mist, and I
knew him by the band on his wrist, now far too loose. тАЬIтАЩm Vere,тАЭ I said quickly. тАЬAnd you areтАЭтАФI saw
the rank badges on the collar of his faded and patched tunicтАФтАЬSector-Captain Lugard!тАЭ тАЬVere.тАЭ He
repeated the name as if his mind fumbled back through time for identification. тАЬVereтАФwhy, youтАЩre SimтАЩs
son! ButтАФbutтАФyou might be Sim.тАЭ He stood there blinking at me, and then, raising his head, he turned