"Norton, Andre - Redline the stars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

pect, she gave no gasp of surprise, but her eyes glowed in
appreciation at the sight of the montage of pictures cover-
ing all the walls, tri-dee images of some of the Federation's
rarer and more dramatic fauna. They were of the highest
professional and artistic quality, and the work of which
they formed a visual record had earned Miceal Jellico a
respected place among the ultrasystem's leading field
xenobiologists.

There should be more in here than merely representa-
tions of strange life forms. Eagerly she sought and found
the one she wanted to see. Behind the Captain's desk, in a
small, swinging cage, was one of the oddest creatures she
had ever beheld, the only one of its kind she had encoun-
tered in the flesh. It looked like a lot of toad mixed with a
little parrot, a bright blue feathered being with a neckless
head and six legs, two of them clawed, arranged spider-
fashion around its dumpy body.




28 Andre Norton 8, P.M. Griffin

"Queex!" she exclaimed in delight and quickly stepped
toward the hoobat. "You're wonderful!"

Jellico stared at her. This was not the reaction Queex
usually inspired. To every previous visitor and to the rest
of the Queen's crew, his foundling was a frank horror.

He stared again, this time at the hoobat himself. Instead
of his customary greeting of siren shriek followed by a
distressingly accurate and far-reaching spit, the creature
was gripping the wire bars of the cage with his feet and
drawing his claws across the metal strands, producing a
soft, droning hum, which, if not quite a violin sonata, was
the first distinctly musical sound any human being had

heard him produce.

Her face radiant with pleasure, Cofort reached a slender
finger through the bars to gently rub the captive's head, an
attention he received with every indication of content-
ment.

Suddenly, as if recollecting herself to her position and


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