"Tom Purdom-Research Project" - читать интересную книгу автора (Purdom Tom)

important if he actually decided to say it out loud.
The Lurch of the Link had reminded me this was no time to let Stridi-If see I was excited. I swallowed
hard and tried to remember how I would react if he had actually quoted a passage from a Renaissance
philosopher.
"That's very interesting, Postri-Dem. I never thought of that particular aspect of Machiavelli in just that
way."
 Behind Postri-Dem's back, Stridi-If was already murmuring into her communicator. Postri-Dem knew
the information system could apply a translation program to his message and produce a reasonably
accurate paraphrase in about twice the time it had taken him to deliver it.
***


The communications screen tells Jinny she has a call from her mother. She wants to keep on reading,
but she knows she can't.
Jinny's mother looks very crisp and trim in her uniform. She wants to make sure Jinny is playing with
her friends. She asks how a boy named Herbert is doing and Jinny assures her she's going to call Herbert
before the day is up.
"That's very important, baby. You can't keep your nose stuck in a reader all the time."
"I'm writing a paper on Postri-Dem," Jinny says. "Did you know the ifli lived in families that had two
mothers and three daddies? Some of them had three mothers and four daddies."
Her mother smiles. "Would you like that? Would you like having more than one mommy and daddy?"
"I just thought it was interesting. Did they have extra mommies and daddies because they didn't eat
meat?"
"I'm afraid I don't know, dear. Are you making sure you're researching at least three sources?"
"I'm reading Dr. Mazzeri's own story. Then I'm going to see what else the library has."
"Dr. Mazzeri's own story? Isn't that a little long?"
"It's just something he wrote about Postri-Dem. For a collection of articles on Postri-Dem. It's really
interesting, Mommy. He really liked Postri-Dem. You can tell it from the way he writes about him."
Her mother smiles again. "I'll have to look at that when I get home. Make sure you pay attention to
your paragraphing, baby. That mentor you've got this semester puts a lot of emphasis on paragraphing."
***


Stridi-If's hiss was so sharp and intense it made Postri-Dem's entire body turn warm -- a sensation
that characterized the ifli's response to high-level threat. He knew what he was going to see before he
turned his head but he still cringed when he saw it. Stridi-If had dropped into a graceless, awkward
crouch. She was still holding her communicator in her left hand but the fingers of her right hand had bent
into stiff, curving claws.
This wasn't the first time Postri-Dem had been faced with someone who had fallen into that crouching,
clawing position. There had been times, in his childhood, when he had found himself surrounded by ten or
twelve children of both sexes.
Sometimes it was something he said. Once he had merely mentioned that the pictures he had seen of
the Netherlands looked pleasanter to him than some of the more industrialized areas of Home. The
landscape of Holland had apparently been shaped almost completely by human activity, but the humans
had treated it with more respect, it seemed to him, than his species had treated Home. There were even
places on Earth where the humans had set aside large areas of untouched wilderness. Did intelligent
predators need some contact with the wilderness in which they had once stalked their food animals?
To him it had been an interesting idea -- the kind of thing that kept running through his mind. He had
known he was in trouble as soon as the other children started to react but he had still been surprised.
"Do you know what you've done?" Stridi-If screamed. "To yourself? To everyone?"