"Andre Norton - Dread Companion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

one not of my choosing. I was hoping that he might answer with an offer of
steady employment. Though that would be no true solution to my desire to
travel, I would have, in his wealth of knowledge, the second best.

He stretched out his thin double arms in a gesture habitual to him,
wiggling his boneless fingers above the keyboard that produced anything he
might wish - from the complete history of the planet Firedrake to a
dinner-of-first-ceremony. With most of his misshapen figure muffled in a
robe of Bora rainbow cloth, rippling rich color at his slightest movement,
he was like a thick bolster perched on one end. Only his four arms and his
conical head showed he was a living being.

For the second time he flicked his wiggling fingers back and forth. Then
his slit of a mouth opened.

"No."

"No? Why?" I was startled enough to use a demanding tone that I would never
have tried with him ordinarily.

"No - I do not take you into my service. That is the easy way, Kilda. And
you are not meant to walk easy roads." He pressed one of those many buttons
now, and my chair spun about so that I no longer faced him, but rather the
wall on which was a projection screen, now like a huge mirror.

"What do you see?" he asked.

"Myself."

"Describe!" His tone was such that we might be in one of the training
booths where he had begun to shape my mind for the retention and collection
of knowledge.



file:///F|/rah/Andre%20Norton/Norton,%20Andre%20-%20Dread%20Companion.txt (2 of 126) [1/17/03 1:11:58 AM]
 file:///F|/rah/Andre%20Norton/Norton,%20Andre%20-%20Dread%20Companion.txt


"I am a woman. My hair - it is - " I hesitated. Those living in the creche
were so varied from crossbreeding that we had no norm of either good looks
or downright ugliness. I knew that certain kinds of faces, coloring, forms
gave me pleasure to look upon. But I had no vanity, nor any idea as to
whether I could be deemed even passable in appearance. "My hair," I began
again resolutely, "is of the color dark brown. I have two eyes - which are
blue-green - one nose, a mouth. My skin is also brown, but lighter in shade
than my hair. For the rest - my body is humanoid, and it is healthy. What
is it that you wish me to see - other than this?"

"You have youth. And though you list your attributes so baldly, Kilda, you