"Edgar Pangborn - A Mirror for Observers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pangborn Edgar)

yet in all the world there were only three other such Counselors тАФ those of Asian
Center, Olympus, and Old City itself. A strangely short while ago there were five Cities.
We remember City of Oceans, but it is better to let the mind turn to the present or the
deeper past. Soon enough a successor would take over Drozma's burden. Meanwhile, his
thought was crystalline-calm as the canals that wind among the Lower Halls of Earth.
The Abdicator Namir watched him pet the little ork curled at his feet, the only breed
except our own that survived the journey from slow-dying Mars more than thirty
thousand years ago. It purred, licked ruddy fur, washed itself, and went back to sleep.
"We had word of you recently, Namir."

"I know." Namir sat down with his drink, gracefully in spite of his own advanced age. He
waited for the girl who had brought the drinks to pat Drozma's cushion, smile and hover,
and go away. "One of your Observers identified me. So I came, partly, to warn you not
to interfere with me."

"Are you serious? We can't be intimidated by you Abdicators. I value Kajna's reports тАФ
she's a keen Observer."

Namir yawned. "So? Did she mention Angelo Pontevecchio?"

"Of course."

"I hope you don't imagine you can do anything with that boy."

"What we hear of him interests us."

"T'chah! A human child, therefore potentially corrupt." Namir pulled a man-made
cigarette from his man-made clothes and rubbed his large human face in the smoke. "He
shares that existence which another human animal has accurately described as 'nasty,
brutish, and short.'"

"I think you came merely to complain of humanity."

Namir laughed. "On the contrary, I get sorry for the creatures, but the pity itself is a
boredom." He shifted casually into American English. "No, Drozma, I just stopped by to
say hello."

"After 134 years! I hardly тАФ "

"Is it that long? That's right, I resigned in 30,829."

"I notice you've picked up human habits of conversation."

"I did interrupt тАФ beg your pardon. Please go on, sir." Not in rebuke but from a private
need, Drozma meditated fifteen minutes, hands folded on his belly, which eventually
bounced in a chuckle. "You are bored with the society of other Abdicators?"

"No. They're few. I rarely see them."

"As one Salvayan to another, how do you put in the time?"