"Mike Resnick - 43 Antarean Dynasties, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

_ The human child looks at his Antarean counterpart. I wonder if he realizes how
fortunate he is. His face gives no reflection of his thoughts; perhaps he has
none. Finally he picks his nose and goes back to manipulating his computer.
The man stares at the _rapu_ for a moment, then flips him a two-credit coin. The
_rapu_ catches it, bows and blesses the man, and runs off. We watch him go. He
raises the coin above his head, yelling happily -- and a moment later, we are
surrounded by twenty more street urchins, all filthy, all hungry, all begging
for coins.
"Enough's enough!" says the man irritably. "Tell them to get the hell out of
here and go home, Herman."
"They live here," I explain gently.
"Right here?" demands the man. He stomps the ground with his foot, and the
nearest _rapus_ jump back in fright. "On this spot? Okay, then tell them to stay
here where they live and not follow us."
I explain to the _rapus_ in our own tongue that these tourists will not give
them coins. "Then we will go to the ugly pink hotel where all the Men stay and
rob their rooms."
"That is none of my concern," I say. "But if you are caught, it will go hard
with you." The oldest of the urchins smiles at my warning. "If we are caught,
they will lock us up, and because it is a jail they will have to feed us, and we
will be protected from the rain and the cold -- it is far better than being
here."
I have no answer for _rapus_ whose only ambition is to be warm and dry and
well-fed, but merely shrug. They run off, laughing and singing, as if they are
human children off to play some game.
"Damned aliens!" mutters the man.
"That is incorrect," I say.
"Oh?"
"A matter of semantics," I point out gently. "_They_ are indigenous. _You_ are
the aliens."
"Well, they could do with some lessons in behavior from us aliens, then," he
growls.
We walk up the long ramp to the Tomb and are about to enter it, when the woman
stops. "I'd like a holo of the three of you standing in the entrance," she
announces. She smiles at me. "Just to prove to our friends we were here, and
that we met a real Antarean."
The man walks over and stands on one side of me. The child reluctantly moves to
my other side. "Now put your arm around Herman," says the woman.
The child steps back, and I see a mixture of contempt and disgust on his face.
"I'll pose with it, but I won't _touch_ it!"
"You do what your mother says!" snaps the man.
"No way!" says the child, stalking sulkily back down the ramp. "You want to hug
him, you go ahead!"
"You listen to me, young man!" says the man, but the child does not stop or give
any indication that he has heard, and soon he disappears behind a temple.
#
_It was Tcharock, the founder of the 30th Dynasty, who decreed that the person
of the Emperor was sacrosanct and could not be touched by any being other than
his medics and his concubines, and then only with his consent._
_His greatest advisor was Chaluba, who extended Tcharock's rule to more than 80%