"Andrew J. Offutt - Spaceways 09 - In Quest of Qalara" - читать интересную книгу автора (Offutt Andrew J)

friends!. Friends were new to her, and the acceptance of them. So were the
concepts of wealth, and retirement, and identity-change with disguise. Her
pensive dolor was an aura that stretched out to darken the thoughts and faces
of her companions. Her friends. A vicious space pirate, with friends! Cinnabar
bit its lip. With its orange skin and carmiana-red hair, the Jarp knew how
good it looked in the skin-hugging red jumpsuit Janja had bought for it, back
in Komodi on Jorinne. It matched the one Janja wore, sitting hunched forward
toward the little terminal. The viewscreen, small but 48 equipped with a
holomagnifier, was full of a beautiful big swirl of luminous blue and indigo
and lavender all traced through with ribbons of true black. The remnants of a
long-dead star, richly decorative. Now that it was dead, it could be looked at
and enjoyed as natural art. Gas and dust, sprawling majestically off to their
"left." Way off to their left. Janja wondered idly what color the nebula had
been when it was aflame, a living hydrogen furnace among billions, but she was
not sufficiently interested to ask SIPACUM for readings and analysis. (SIPACUM
was running the ship as well as monitoring constantly, inside and out in
space, close to hand and long range. For it to detach a portion of its
microcircuitry to access every Outreach reference it held was less trouble
than for Janja to scratch her nose while reading.) Janja was calling up
peripheral/ancillary refs to Outreach and Outies, before bringing up the main
entry onto the screen. "Rich," Cinnabar murmured for the nth time, nervous in
the silence laden with dark thoughts. It stared at nothing at all with its
great big round, soft eyes. SHONDEKAYAN EPH, SIPACUM printed, "first Insarch
of reunified Outreach," and followed with a date two hundred years old.
Staring, Janja was thinking about the patterned oddness of Outreacher names
when she heard the voice of one called Trafalgar Cuw: "Once, on Outreach, I
had a friend named Varnalgeran Yuw. We . . . went to school together. And I
have a cousin named Calcutta Kay, did you know that? We don't get much on
Outreach, but we Outies get good names. Varnalgeran Yuw, and Calcutta Kay, and
Trafalgar Cuw and Janjaglaya Wye. And"-abruptly, happy-faced and triumphant,
he pointed at Hellfire-"not Aljerah, but Kalahari Kay I" "That's beautiful,"
Cinnabar said, whose Jarp name was of course unpronounceable by any but Jarps
and who 49 had been Raunchy before it decided that was no proper name at all,
and Janja had come up with "Cinnabar." Hellfire had twitched her head up to
stare at the Outie just as Janja had done. She glanced at the blond. Janja had
looked around; she smiled. "I like it, Prass-top." " 'Kalahari Kay,' "
Hellfire said, tasting the sound of it, testing the feel of it on her lips.
"Kalahari. Pretty enough, I guess. Does it mean something?'' Trafalgar shook
his head. "A very ancient word, we're sure of that." "Kalahari," she said
again. "What about 'Kalahari Cuw'?" "Merciless Theba! You want to be my
relative!" Cinnabar and Janja laughed. Oddly Hellfire, who had once scornfully
called him "Trafalgar Pew," did not. "I could do worse, Traf. Could you?" "Oh,
I might have to think about that a little!" Trafalgar said. "Particularly with
Corundum gone. But-" He made an extravagant gesture-a Trafalgarish
gesture-smiling ingenuously. Hellfire snatched up an empty drinking plass and
threw it at him. It was both empty and lightweight. Its lip caught air and it
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