"Kevin O'Donnel Jr. - The Journeys of McGill Feighan 03 - Lava" - читать интересную книгу автора (O'Donnell Jr Kevin)

Sam squinted at the stranger. "Are you a him?"
Feighan winced in embarrassment.
"I am an it," it said in that serrated voice. "May I enter nonetheless?"
"Oh, sure." Sam's tail dropped, and brushed from side to side. Backing
away from the door, he let it swing open.
Into the vestibule hobbled a two-meter-tall barrel cactus on spider's legs.
"Thank you." It spoke by rubbing four of its longer spines together. A pale,
glossy patch of skin pointed straight at Feighan; another ambered its left
side. A purplish gourd the size of a cucumber dangled from its top.
The Flinger almost tripped. He blinkedтАФthen snapped his fingers. An
Actuni! He had met one, once, a long time ago. An odd creature, it had
been. A diplomat attached to the Flinger Network Control's New York Field
Office, it had become addicted to Terran showers; crown rot had
hospitalized it within six months.
He walked forward to greet his visitor, wishing he could remember some
Actuni customs. He could not. Ordinary politeness would have to do. "Good
morning." Checking his instinct to extend a hand, he bowed. "What is it that
you wished to see me about?"
The alien, green and bristly, hopped through a quarter turn, bringing into
view the third of its glowing ocular aureoles. The middle convexity stared
Feighan full in the face. From it jutted a slender spike that quivered at its
grey tip. "You are Feighan McGill the Flinger?"
"Yes. Please, come into the living room."
Once the Actuni had tottered all the way inside, Oscar closed the door
behind it. "Thank you."
"You're welcome." It moved with a slowness maddening to a hungry
twenty-two-year-old whose doughnuts dried just around the corner but who
had to be at work inтАФEighteen minutes, now; sure hope this guy talks quicker
than it walks.. .He kept his face stiffly free of impatience, though, because
some aliens could read human expressions.
 The living room's glass wall overlooked Manhattan; a southern exposure,
it received direct sunlight all day long. At 9:45 a.m. on that June day, a
wedge of brilliance electrified the blue of half the Chinese carpet. The alien
marched all the way into the wedge. The green of its waxy skin came alive.
Then it did a dance and a scuttle to turn itself around. "I am called
Hngchgck."
Dubiously, Feighan attempted to repeat the sound. The hoarse gutturals
tricked him into a cough. "Your people approximate that as: H'nik."
"I am very pleased to meet you." Bowing again, he gestured to his ward.
"And this is Sam."
"How do you do, Sam?" The Actuni's thousands of spines rippled like
grass in a breeze. "You are a long way from your home world; are you also a
pilgrim?"
Sam nictitated in apparent confusion; his tongue fluttered briefly. "No,
I'm a Rhanghan-American."
The alien's noise of response sounded like a dry chuckle. "I have been
studying your language for many years, Feighan McGillтАФ"
"It's the other way around," said Sam. "You've got it backwards. It's really
McGill Feighan."
"Ah? I apologize. We of Actu, having no parents, are unfamiliar with