"Mike Resnick - A Miracle Of Rare Design" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

the sun had to set pretty soon. The temperature would drop forty degrees or more in the next hour, and he
could finally stop worrying about passing out from heat stroke.
Suddenly he became aware of a damp feeling in his armpits.Damn! Despite all his precautions, his salt pills,
his adrenaline injections, the oxygenation of his blood, his anti-perspirants, his loosely-fitting robes, he had
begun sweating in earnest. Perspiration was pouring off his body. How much longer before the stains were
visible? More to the point, did Fireflies ever sweat? There was so much he didn't know about them; who would
ever have thought that he might get tripped up by something so trivial as perspiration?
He stepped into a recessed doorway while he considered his options, and finally concluded that he didn't
really have any. He hadn't come this far to quit, and he had no way of masking any stains if they should
come through, so he might as well not worry about them. If he held his body awkwardly, if he looked like he
was trying to hide something, he'd draw more attention than if he simply walked boldly and confidently among
the Fireflies. Possibly, if no one was observing him, he could cover his robes with a layer of dust, as if he had
just come out of the desert, but the desert was red and the dust of the city streets was brown; it might call
even more attention to himself.
The best alternative was to return to the stable and wait there until the sun set the rest of the way. He was
just about to do so when a caravan of Fireflies and their beasts of burden passed by, laden with exotic goods.
There was a chance that there was another stable further up the road, that their animals would be quartered
there, but it wasn't worth the risk of exposure if he guessed wrong.
A small insect landed on his cheek, and he instinctively slapped at it. One of the Fireflies, sitting atop its ugly
mount, turned to stare at him.
What now?, thought Lennox. Didn't any of you ever take a swipe at an insect before? And then he tried to
remember: hadhe ever seen a Firefly react to an insect? He couldn't recall a single instance.
The Firefly was still staring at him, and he felt the need to do something,anything , to assuage what he was
sure were its suspicions. He considered everything from faking a fit to eating the insect, and settled,
uncomfortably, for meticulously readjusting the thick hood of his robe. He dared a quick look in the direction
of the Firefly; evidently it had lost interest in him, and was once again staring dully at the street.
Still, just to be on the safe side, he began walking again, turning into the first side street he came to. It
seemed to be a row of hovels housing weavers. There were great vats of dye, and large hanks of colorful yarn
hanging out to dry. Here were the reds and oranges of the desert tribes, the muted browns and greens of the
city dwellers, even the whites of the warrior caste and the golds of the priests. Firefly females sat at their
looms, their fingers moving swiftly and surely, creating subtle patterns, while dozens of children played in the
street. A small, feline creature emerged from a house and began walking across the street. One of the
children threw a rock at it; it snarled and raced back inside.
As Lennox walked down the street, ignoring the children and ignored in turn by them, he saw an occasional
water gourd hanging near a loom, and tried not to think about it. There was no way he could steal one without
being noticed, not in an area as crowded as this. This led him to wonder if he was still sweating, then to lick
his upper lip to find out. It was moist and salty. Were any sweat stains visible? He didn't know, and had no
way to check on them, but the children continued to pay him no attention, so he assumed his outer robes
were still dry.
He looked at a pair of male children chasing each other up the street. How the hell did they do it? Their
metabolism couldn't be that different, not living as they did on an oxygen world that was capable of supporting
human life. But they didn't sweat, they didn't drool, they didn't pant, they didn't give any indication that the
heat affected them at all. Evolution and adaptation, he told himself, evolution and adaptation. But that didn't
explain the wings. They couldn't flyтАФgiven their structures, they hadnever flownтАФso what were the wings for?
And their fingersтАФwhy were they so long? How did useless wings and four-jointed fingers qualify as survival
traits?
I should have done more homework.
But of course, that was precisely what he was doingnow . The Fireflies had no use for Men. They refused to
trade with them. They refused to exchange ambassadors. They refused to have anything to do with Man's
sprawling Republic. They allowed Men one small outpost, right in the middle of that sun-baked southern