"Mike Resnick & Nicholas A DiChario - Birdie" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

"Snout."

"And those long floppy --"

"Wings."

"I think your ears are bigger than my whole head," he says, his voice filled
with more curiosity than awe. "Do you have four legs or two?"

"Two hind legs. Two front forearms. Fourteen digits in all." I wiggle my fingers
and toes.

"Those are awfully small arms," he says. "And awfully big legs. And just look at
the size of your toenails!"

"Talons."

"And there's that fire in your nose, too. I don't know of any man who can light
a room with his nose."

"Snout." I haul myself up to get a better look at the boy. He doesn't back off,
even though I'm as tall as two men and as round as ten. He's a skinny cub, but
handsome for his race, nothing at all like the other Darwins I've seen. Erasmus
was ugly as sin, and Robert was a fat pig of a child, an awkward, weary specimen
with nerves like glass trinkets. The Darwins, historically, have been an
absolutely hideous-looking elan. "If it makes you feel any better to believe I'm
a man, then I'm a man."

The boy frowns. "You smell different, too. Like . . . like . . . "

"Wine?" I suggest.

"How many years have you been down here?"

"That's a good question." I pause. "Let me think. I was sleeping under a tree,
and when I woke up this wine cellar was all around me. I don't remember much
before that."

"You mean we built Mount Darwin right on top of your?"

This seems to upset the lad, although for the life of me I can't understand why.
I lie down and get comfortable again, resting my chin on the floor.

The boy strides right up to me, sticks his candle in my snout, and lights the
wick. He reaches out and touches my land scales. "They don't feel anything at
all like fur or fish scales. They feel like . . . I don't know. . . "

"Peat moss."

"You can put your fire out now if you like. It must be painful for you to have